


Salt and Blood

by Wenzel



Series: Between Shadows and Light [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Galra Keith (Voltron), Lima Syndrome, M/M, Multi, Political Intrigue, Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2018-11-06 15:50:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 23
Words: 129,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11039343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wenzel/pseuds/Wenzel
Summary: After months on Central Command, Keith finds himself in a new prison: the home planet of the Galra. In a palace of intrigue, amid a strange race whose lives he's only beginning to understand, can Keith escape back to the Paladins? Or will the twisted, growing bond between him and the Galra he's met trap him in the palace walls?(Second arc of Between Shadows and Light.)





	1. Prologue

The Sonata Palace had stood for twenty-five thousand years. 

Such a length of time was difficult for a mortal mind to comprehend: even the fabled Alteans had only lived for a millennia or two, and most other races died at two centuries. The only person alive who could understand the Palace’s age was also the one who owned it. 

There were, legend said, a hundred levels to the Palace, though visitors only saw five. Each of these five levels were built of white stone, painted in a sunset red that made lesser races think of fresh blood. Some of the walls were carved from salt, a luxury on Gal considering its deserts and distant seas. Open windows let the desert breeze touch every inch of the Palace. When the rare rains came, nobles and servants alike would cluster at the windows or even be invited to parties held to celebrate the rain’s arrival. 

From afar, the Palace looked like a shimmering diamond on a hill. Built without seams and smoothed to strange rectangles piled atop each other, it looked like a natural formation risen to the desert surface. Legends said it’d been conjured by the old gods of Gal for their favoured Galra to live in. The rank songs of every family were chiselled into the lower levels-- from the sixth to the hundredth. Famous Galra were buried on those levels, turning the hallowed walls into sacred halls. 

Dignitaries, nobles, soldiers, and artists filled the Palace. Favoured visitors lived on the first floor; the lowest ranked suffered the desert’s heat and vicious winds at the top. Twenty-five thousand years had blessed the Palace with almost as many stories as there voices in the Chorus. Ghosts lurked the halls, though it was impolite to mention them.

Before Zarkon’s reign, the Palace had been simply another gladiatorial ring. Galra and outsiders squabbled over power-- through words, through poison, and even through fists.  _ Blood from fallen Galra dyed the walls _ , murmured younger servants.  _ The Palace is made from the bones of the ambitious. _

The older ones would scold them, even as their failing sight searched for listening ghouls and ghosts. 

So when Zarkon’s ship arrived from Central Command, the young princeling he brought with him caused little notice. The prince’s thick fur was admirable, and his large gold eyes attractive, but there were prettier Galra about and those with higher pedigrees too. The servants sent to tend to the prince’s needs were, if anything, disappointed. 

“I was hoping for a warlord’s daughter,” a sour young man said. “If I played it right, I could have been her gardener.”

The older servant beside him pursed her lips. “Who would hire a man who cleans clothes to  _ garden _ ?” 

The weight of the statement seemed to hit the young man. “I know how to cultivate a garden,” he said as he sulked. “I may not be trained, but I’ve read books--”

“He’s read books,” the older servant echoed, her tone tainted with disbelief. “Should I be a Druid then? I’ve certainly read all about them!”

The conversation lulled when the prince’s entourage appeared. It was a strange one, as some servants would comment later. A commander, a cadet, and a Druid of all things. Rumours already took form by the time supper came ‘round, and by morning, every servant had their guesses.

None of them were even close to the truth.


	2. Chapter 2

He was Prince Caith of the Blackmouths, newest resident of the Sonata Palace and emissary of his far-off people. He’d converted to the way of the Voice despite his people’s defection centuries ago. “Who are the Blackmouths?” a servant whispered to another after the introductions between him and his new staff. Keith pretended not to hear.

It was a question that had a simple and neat answer: the Blackmouths were glorified pirates, he’d been told, and they kept their distance far from the Empire. They followed a strange religion, one far from the Voice. “I haven’t destroyed them,” Zarkon had added, “because they pose no immediate threat. They’re strange, isolated, and prefer to keep to themselves. They’ll never know our fiction, and no one at the Palace will have the opportunity to ask.”

Keith was less sure. While he admired Zarkon’s confidence in the matter, after Central Command, he had his doubts about who knew who and who knew what. There was a chance someone knew the Blackmouths, and there was a stronger chance that someone would reach out to them if Keith became notable among the notables of the Palace. 

For now, though, he told himself he was safe. His purpose among the Galra was to show off how warm they were to those who’d once been enemies and how the truth of the Voice could spread to even the darkest-minded of turncoats. The Blackmouths worshipped nature deities-- rumoured to be the original gods of the Galra, though modified through a politics of hatred for Gal-- and their light dimmed in comparison to the shining Voice.

It was… fairly whatever to Keith. Nobody knew much about the Blackmouths outside of Zarkon’s espionage operations, and the little information they had covered little quirks. The Blackmouths consumed largely vegetables. They worshipped in complexes dug deep into their colony’s earth. Bugs were a delicacy; meat appeared on tables rarely. 

_ Think of them as fangless Galra _ , Zarkon had said.  _ Their guts and hearts were removed when they left us for grubs and gladhanding. _

He hoped no one offered him bugs. He didn’t know the etiquette of the Palace too well, but he didn’t put it past someone to try to embarrass him by reminding servants and notables alike that Prince Caith had munched on bugs a few months ago. 

“Your eyes are fading,” Hyladra whispered in the drawing room’s quiet. Keith startled away from the board game in front of him. He didn’t know what it was called, and he didn’t know how to play it, but the round, glassy stones were cool to the touch. “I’ll fetch Druid Volux.” She stood, her uniform of dark red and black absorbing the sun spilling in through the window. He couldn’t imagine how hot she felt. 

Keith nodded as he smoothed his own clothes out. They were a pale camel brown robe, with sandals and lots of room for the breeze to cool him off. He sat on a couch built of sandy wood, damask, and a cloud-like filling. It felt nice to sit on feathers or cotton or whatever was inside the pillows. The urge to dig his claws into it and pluck at the threads was distinctly  _ catlike _ . He tried to ignore it. The transfusions of quintessence were needed, and Volux would be annoyed if they caught Keith relaxing. 

Water, wine, and a pitcher shaped like a crescent moon rested on the low-sitting table in front of the couch. Whenever Keith reached over to pour himself a drink, a servant would appear to do the task for him. So he’d given up on it: he stared out the window and waited for Volux. 

When the Druid arrived, Volux curtseyed, though the Galra didn’t call it that. They called it  _ wawu _ . Custom said it could only be used for nobles. Keith knew it grated Volux to do it for Keith. They held in their hands a medical satchel with complex blue designs sewn on it. “Close the door,” Keith said to the servant waiting on the other side. He had to bite his tongue to stop himself from saying ‘thank you’.

When the door closed, Volux took a spot beside Keith. They tossed the satchel on to the table after plucking a vial from its inside. “You look,” Volux told him as they unscrewed the cap, “like someone has dropped their trousers in front of you.”

“I hate this,” Keith said. “It’s weird.”

Volux shrugged. “The Emperor believes this the best route for us to take.” They cocked their head to the side, their mask hiding their expression. Keith heard only slight disdain and a general sourness to their voice. “Hold out your hand.”

Keith jabbed it out, palm up. “Is it going to, uh…”

“Sting?” Volux asked. “It will feel the same, Keith, as it always has. The needle’s point will be hidden by the quintessence’s sensation.”

Even still, he refused to look. He hated needles, and the new method of infusing him with quintessence involved a quick stab into his palm pads. It was needed-- his eyes naturally gravitated to a single gold and the other purple, which would rightfully alarm those who didn’t know the truth-- but he hated it. He despised it. When the needle slipped into his skin, he hissed and tried to stifle the curse that spilled out from his lips.

“Good,” Volux said. “You’re sounding more natural already.”

Keith refused to look at them. “I didn’t already?”

“Partly,” Volux said. “Largely not. You’ve taken to imitating the finest Galran speech a little too keenly. You sound like your tutor choked you with ancient texts and scoldings.”

Keith frowned. It was true, he supposed. “I just tried to sound like you and Zarkon.”

“Two very different styles,” Volux mused. They pulled the needle out. The wound burned as a tingling sensation crawled up his arm, into his body, and seemed to sink deep into his muscles and marrow. “I believe it would be better if you found your  _ own _ .”

A solid point, but Keith didn’t know the cultural attitude towards each way of speaking. In an ideal world, he’d speak like a well-educated Galra with a few foreign phrases that could be passed off as Blackmouth dialect. But a well-educated human sounded very different from a well-educated Galra. Galra spoke in a stilted and formal manner already, even the most poorly educated ones.

He flexed his hand. Dots of green blood had welled up.”I wish we didn’t have to do this,” he said. “You’re certain there are those who’d notice you weaving the quintessence?”

“Quite sure,” Volux said. They dabbed the needle prick with a soft swab. Antiseptic left it burning. “Those in the Palace are, if anything, particularly nosey. It would make them curious.”

Considering Keith’s flimsy backstory, curiosity was dangerous. Keith took the swab from Volux and kept pressure on the wound. It’d clot soon, and he could pretend nothing had happened. Any questions about Volux’s meetings with the prince would be dismissed as Caith having questions about the Voice. He was new to the religion, after all.

Volux packed their satchel in quick motions. They didn’t look at Keith, and Keith gave up on trying to have their gazes meet. The world outside the window was a sea of reddish sand and golden sunlight. His window faced away from the town, and at the height his room was, he couldn’t see the garden that dozens of Galra carefully tended to. They could have been in the middle of nowhere, only the two of them, and the view would never contradict it.

Yet he knew the capital was all around the Palace. Millions lived in Vrikka. In the distance, when it was the evening, he could hear cars and people; in the high noon, when the sun was the hottest, people retreated to their underground homes. There were thousands upon thousands of the homes, many connected in complex subterranean tunnels. The buildings on the surface were buildings for only the evening: clubs, restaurants, theatres, and the like. Many of the surface buildings had entrances for the underground tunnels, he’d been told. 

“When they flood, though,” Hyladra had said, “it can take hours to fix.”

It was a minor inconvenience compared to the sweltering sun. While the Galra were more resistant to heat stroke than humans, it was still a common problem. Keith knew it from the dizziness he’d felt after an hour of waiting outside the Palace as he was introduced. Even Hyladra had been panting when they got indoors.

The sand he stared at-- the vast plain of nothing-- held beneath it so many lives. By tradition, nobody could build surface buildings behind the Palace. It was the Emperor’s view, his connection to the land of Gal. Yet at the front of the Palace, the city of Vrikka loomed above. The Palace acted as the dividing force in the town: in front, a true city; behind, the desert for miles, until the sands rose in a wave and buildings waited behind the hills.

“You should drink something,” Volux finally said. Their satchel was packed, yet they hadn’t left.

Keith glanced over at their face. He would have complained about the mask again, but what would he have read otherwise? Sourness and a foul mood. “I didn’t lose much blood, did I?” He looked down at his hand and the swab. It was still mostly white.

Volux sighed, forever put upon by the idiots around them. “You’re faint.”

“I am?”

“You are,” Volux insisted. “You keep staring out the window,  _ Caith _ .”

What did Volux mean by using his fake name in private? Keith narrowed his eyes at Volux. “I’m fine, Druid Volux. Simply  _ distracted _ by my new surroundings.” Spite kept him from drinking, as tempting as it was to sip some water. 

“You play your part well.” Volux stood and hooked their satchel over their shoulder. “If you pass out, do not call for me.” They marched from the room. Their mask would hide their annoyance well, at least. 

When Volux left his rooms, Hyladra returned to him. She took up her post once again, on a pillowy chair to the side of the window. Keith felt like his heart withered in his chest: boredom sucked any relief at the change in scenery from his soul. He missed the simulations, libraries, and people of Central Command. Here, at the Palace, he had Hyladra and Volux’s occasional resentful presence. 

“You should drink something,” Hyladra said. 

Keith gave in and reached for the pitcher. As though conjured by Hyladra’s words, a servant dove into the room and caught it before Keith’s reluctant hands. “Excuse me, my Prince,” the man murmured. They poured a glass of pink-tinted water into a fluted glass. Keith forced himself to flick his ears to the side and smile without showing his teeths. The servant’s ears perked up in response. 

“Thank you,” Keith murmured as he took the glass. “Your service is admirable.” He hated it. He could pour his own glass of water. The pink liquid was a special kind of water, he’d been told, which made the affair worse. It came from a specific spring whose minerals made it the subject of health legends and high prices.  It was the ‘water of the Voice’s light’ and could bestow immortality to the devout. He hoped nobody truly believed that. Hyladra had sounded in awe when she told him the stories. She’d even refused his offer of the water.

The water tasted sharp, like it had large amounts of metal in it. His face twisted as an overwhelming amount of salt coated his senses. He tried not to heave as he choked down the mouthful. A few droplets flew free as he coughed. Hyladra hurried over as the servant watched wide-eyed; a solid few thumps to his back helped. As he tried to even out his breathing, the servant was hastily escorted from the room.

“Caith?” Hyladra asked as she closed the door. “Can you breathe?”

“Yeah,” he wheezed. “What  _ was _ that?” It tasted like drinking sea water with metals added to it.

Hyladra crouched in front of him, her head cocked to the side. “It’s water,” she told him.

Water didn’t taste like that. “People drink it on  _ purpose _ ?” he demanded.

Hyladra tried to stifle her laugh. “It’s a luxury,” she said, as though that explained the taste. “What was so repulsive about it?”

“The salt,” Keith said. “It’s like I’m drinking the sea.”

Hyladra tilted her head to the side. “The sea is much worse,” she said. “The Mahadra Springs are famous for the salt and minerals in its water. I don’t know how rare or common salt is for your people, but on Gal… Salt is difficult to come by. We don’t excrete it as heavily as other species, but we do lose it, and replacing it can be an expensive and dangerous process.” She motioned at the pitcher filled with pink water. “And so the Mahadra Springs have become legendary, reserved only for the best Galra.”

Keith wiped his salty lips with his sleeve. “...Then why don’t you have some?”

“Ah,” Hyladra said, her eyes wide. “ _ Keith _ !”

He smiled through the agony of the water’s aftertaste. “It’s true,” he said. He nudged her with his foot. “I’m not going to drink it, and you’ve been a statue all day. You must be tired.”

“You are incorrigible,” she said. She stared at the pitcher. “It would cause a scandal if the servants found out.”

Keith shrugged. “Then we’ll pretend I drank it. Wouldn’t there be more offense if I didn’t drink it?”

“True.” She gently picked up his discarded glass. She gave it a quiet sniff and her ears flattened. “...Thank you for this.”

“Take it as your due.” Was that too formal? Hyladra didn’t seem to think so. She began to leisurely sip from the cup. Her eyes drifted closed, as though she savoured the wretched taste. Gentle content drifted over their bond.

The comfortable bond with her made him want to reach out to the Red Lion. He knew, from both Volux’s recent warnings and those in the past, that rekindling the bond with the Red Lion would cause pain he’d not soon forget. The Druids watching over the Lion had worked hard to confine its essence and soul behind a shield. It couldn’t reach him. He’d been told he couldn’t reach it either, but he distrusted that. He wouldn’t know for sure until he did it, but reaching out brought dozens of risks. 

Pain if he succeeded, alarm from the Galra guarding the Red Lion, and a withdrawal of privileges were the main problems. If he reopened the entire bond with the Red Lion, it would likely be his final act on Gal. Either he’d escape or Zarkon himself would descend on him and send him into harsher conditions.

“You look half asleep,” Hyladra said. “Does the Palace bore you so much?”

Keith flopped back against the couch. “There’s nothing to do.” He let his head fall back. “I’ve been here for a day, and all I’ve done is stare out the window and pretend servants aren’t watching.”

“What would make your time better?”

It was an earnest question. He appreciated the effort, but-- “There’s nothing that can be done without a scandal or questions. I want to study Galran, but I’m supposed to know it already. I want to practice piloting or duel or anything but sitting around, waiting for things to happen.”

Hyladra rested a hand on his shoulder as she leaned in. Her breath carried the scent of salt. Keith tried not to wince at the stink. “What are you waiting for?” she asked, voice gentle.

“Anything,” he said. “This… I know what you guys hope for. You want it to be quiet. No more life or death situations. That requires me to be a boring noble, though.”

“And you hate it.” Hyladra poured herself another glass of the Mahadra water. “I could arrange practice times for you.”

Keith shook his head. “I can’t be shown as talented, though.” Talented wasn’t the right word. It made him sound arrogant. “As skilled, I mean. I’d have to know nothing, otherwise people will ask questions. Especially with piloting.”

“Caith can have depths,” she insisted. “The Emperor put limits on you, yes, but he’d be angry if you sat here and wasted away in boredom.”

Keith poured himself a glass of wine. What would it taste like? Sour and floral? Sweet and light? Or worse-- a similar flavour of salt to the water? Everything on Gal was unexpected. He didn’t know the culture, people, or their customs as well as he needed to play at being a Galran prince. Those were depressing thoughts, though, and not helpful in the least. “Can the practices be private?” He pulled the glass in and gave it a short sniff. It smelled nectar-sweet and cloying. It didn’t have a citrus scent, which was good for a Galra. He took a hesitant sip and almost sighed in relief. It didn’t taste like poison. “I think it’d get less attention if no one saw. But I’m not sure Caith would have the pull for that.”

“He wouldn’t,” Hyladra admitted. “You’re an unfortunate charity case whose use is for propaganda.”

Well, at least she was as aware of it as he was. “I wonder if Zarkon created this situation purposely.” Hyladra shrugged beside him, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. She thought he had too, then. “Then we can… I don’t know. They won’t have simulators here, would they? And practicing a duel in the apartments will start rumours.”

“We can wrestle on the side balcony,” Hyladra said. “Who wants to look at the view from there?”

Keith laughed into his glass. The side balcony looked out at the fancied up parking lot the Palace had. “Maybe Zarkon will save me,” he said, and the oddness of the statement made his mouth pucker. “Nevermind. I didn’t say that.”

Hyladra let out a peal of light laughter. “The Emperor would be greatly disappointed if I didn’t tell him.” Her gold eyes sparkled in the sunlight that spilled in through the window. “But for your sake, I will keep it to myself.”

“Kind of you,” he said, though he didn’t fully trust her word. He stood from the couch and walked to the door. “Let us return to the charade. It’s getting hot in here.” When he opened the door, there was no relieving breeze that came through. Only servants who froze mid-gossip. 

Keith thought about confronting them. Gossiping servants was a bad sign. He and Hyladra had tested the door to see if people were audible from the other side. They weren’t, but Keith didn’t put it past the servants to have other ways to spy. He forced a smile anyway. “I apologize,” he said, “for any worry I caused.”

The servants shared long looks among themselves. “We’re glad you’ve recovered,” said the oldest woman. “If it is not an imposition, may we make a request?”

No, Keith thought. “Of course,” he said. 

“If something dangerous is to happen again,” she said, “and I pray to the Voice it does not, please do not remove us from the situation. You are our master: for something bad to happen to you under our watch would destroy our souls.”

That was overly invested to a sick degree. Keith doubted it was genuine. He bowed his head to them, the most respect he was allowed to show. “I understand and appreciate your service.” He wanted to leave his apartment. The dozen servants all curtseyed and blessed him and pretended he wasn’t a freakshow. 

Behind him, Hyladra waited. He returned to her, and once again silence took over. Her glass stayed untouched. It’d been moved over to Keith’s side of the table. A young woman carried in a platter of snacks. He didn’t recognize any of them from Central Command’s cafeteria.

Little cups of a grassy-tasting pudding decorated in flower blossoms and drizzled nectar. Little baked triangles with minced meat wrapped in their centre. Dumplings that contained sweetness and salt, important after Hyladra’s note that salt was rare. The best snack was a long halved loaf coated in nuts, fruit, and a creamy substance that tasted mouth-puckeringly sour.

He wanted to offer some to Hyladra, but she didn’t even look at it. She’d returned to being his guard, and he was once again alone. He wished he’d found something,  _ anything _ to do before he opened the door. All he could do was try to enjoy the rooms themselves.

The salt walls were scarce this high up, but there were a few present. They were bright pink, orange, red, gold, and white bricks with light turning them to fire made form, tamed into building blocks for the Palace. He thought of illuminated screens in stage plays, where shadows played behind them. Whenever he walked past the walls, he smelled salt, even though he’d been told that it’d been tightly sealed into its brick form. 

“Rains or flooding would destroy them otherwise,” Thace had said. When Keith had touched one wall with a single finger, the smooth, glossy surface felt nice against his pads. Hyladra hadn’t been able to resist doing the same.

The Galra didn’t use wood in buildings. They used clay, stones, bricks, adobe, and glass. His rooms’ floors were sandy, smooth stones, while the walls that weren’t salt bricks were white bricks for the interior walls that comprised the structural support areas. Exterior walls were built from glass and thin, pale stone. 

He couldn’t just sit in his apartments for the next however many months he was stuck at the Palace. People would gossip. Keith would likely go insane. Maybe he could tour the gardens? But that’d make himself a presence. He knew he wasn’t allowed to leave the Palace, and while he didn’t value the command as law, it was best to behave for now. 

Especially considering his past experiences on Central Command, and the warning Adran had said to him. There was a plant in the Palace, and while Zarkon knew that, there was a strong chance  the Clarion would attempt to kill Caith. He was being used as a tool for the Empire, after all.

Were there pools? Likely not, or at least they were rarely used. Galran fur had a tendency to be difficult to dry. He’d heard some complaints as Keirin about other colonies having problems with mold growing in the fur. “Spend a few weeks in Hara’s forests,” one attendee had said glumly, “and you’ll find the moss has transplanted on to  _ you _ .”

“Are there any fitness facilities?” he asked a servant who walked by, refilling glasses. How bad could those be to use?

The servant eyed him. “There are,” he said. “On the ground floor-- there’s a traditional wing and a more advanced one.” Keith forced himself to nod and not perk up. What were traditional Galran exercises? The servant seemed to pick up on Keith’s interest. He placed the glass he held down beside his pitcher. “If your Hani believes it appropriate, I can show you where to go.”

Keith glanced over at Hyladra. She sat like a statue. Yet her ears flicked once before she nodded. “So long as it’s in proper areas,” she said. 

‘Proper areas’ meant well-travelled, monitored, and within the Palace. Any complaints he had were less important than the fact that he was leaving the rooms. It’d been a short time, but after so long in the temple, the glimpse of freedom he had on the ship had been water to a man in the desert.  If he could work off the tense, poisonous energy that flooded his system, he’d be a grateful man. 

He was ushered to his room by the servants when news of his desire made the rounds. Hyladra took up her post at the door to his room. Inside, a half dozen Galra fluttered about, whispering among each other as they sorted out clothes and accessories. 

It was a cosy room. Large enough to fit his entire staff comfortably, the bed was a little bigger than a queen, with pillows and sheets and-- of all things-- a hearth in the centre. He didn’t know how the design worked, but the lid didn’t burn to touch while the heat diffused into the plush parts of the bed. 

The room, shaped in a circle, had dressers and flowers along its walls. The dressers were crafted from red-coloured glass; the flowers were lush plants that belonged more in a jungle than a desert. A long but lone balcony faced the desert area again. Smooth, limestone-like furniture lay beneath an extendable awning. He’d been shown it but he’d yet to use it.

Keith sat on the bed as people hurried about. Above him, the ceiling was pitch black; at night, the colour thinned, revealing the two moons and stars high above. His feet rested on thick carpets that covered the stone floor. 

It was a beautiful room. Windows were open, and wind came through them, cooling him off. It wasn’t a private place-- servants were always going in and out-- but it was the closest he got to relaxation. Another servant hurried into the room, a tablet in hand. A group of servants huddled around them, while a few others continued to lay out workout clothes. Keith didn’t comment on their group or question them: he looked out a nearby window, as he always did. 

When the group dispersed, a lone servant came over to him. She was the older woman who’d spoke for the servants earlier. “An invitation has arrived, my Prince. The Emperor invites you to a rain-watching party.”

There was no rain now, but he imagined the Galra were better at weather prediction than Earth was. “How soon will the party be?”

The servant glanced down at the pad, though he knew she already knew the date. “This evening, in a few hours. There would be time for you to exercise, but it would have to be quick if you wish to make the rain-watching party.”

He didn’t know the etiquette of rain-watching parties. Thankfully, he was unlikely to be expected to. “A bit of exercise will get me in the mood for a party,” he said. Was it a strange thing to say? The servant’s expression revealed nothing. “I trust that you will deal with further arrangements. My knowledge of Palace etiquette is poor.”

The woman nodded. “Of course, my Prince.” She motioned at a set of clothes another servant laid out. “I will earn the trust you have placed in me.”

Keith smiled. “I believe you will.” The subservience unsettled him. He suspected-- knew, really-- that the servants were unsure of him. That knowledge came from their sidelong looks among each other and the pauses whenever he spoke, as though they’d judged him and found him wanting. 

The feeling didn’t change when he dressed for the gym in loose, baggy pants and a sleeveless shirt. An overcoat of dark brown cotton kept him warm as they walked down through the Palace’s halls. Walls of salt lined the parade of him, Hyladra, and two other servants. The halls were wide and open, decorated in paint and light; the flights of stairs could fit a hundred people, though his entourage used the elevators instead. The elevators were strangely modern. They were big enough to fit several dozen people and had a complex network of buttons to choose from what seemed a hundred different floors. The elevator’s walls, instead of plain metal, were smooth sheetrock the colour of hyacinth. 

The gym waited for them on the fourth basement floor. The elevator opened directly into the area: it was a cavernous building, made of sand, rock, and a ceiling that was glass and looked into a pond. Colourful fish flitted between reeds and pads. A lone, oblong creature bobbed along, looking half-asleep if not for the bulbous green eyes that watched the fish move. It was hungry, Keith thought, but it didn’t bother to chase the fish because it likely knew there was other food available. Its scales were small and shiny, looking almost like a rainbow. It was the size of an average human being. 

“A draka,” Hyladra said to him when he asked. “They’re Galra-eaters, but this one comes from a long line of Palace residents. I wouldn’t call it tamed nor would I swim with it.”

Keith pitied whoever had to deal with the giant pond. Those thoughts were pushed to the wayside as he walked the gymnasium. The sand floor had two main areas: one was packed with advanced machines that wouldn’t look out of place in a human gym. The Galra machines worked different muscles and worked shared ones in foreign ways, but he knew a treadmill when he saw it. 

On the opposite side, a large sand pit offered a place to wrestle and grapple, which many Palace residents seemed reluctant to take it up on. They circled the area instead, stretching and chatting with one another. Servants were further back, on benches and pillows, waiting for their masters to finish.

Heavy rocks were in flat sand areas, the grooves in the sand revealing that their purpose was to be pushed. A wall behind the heavy rocks waited for people to climb its small, jutting rocks. Another nearby area was a small racetrack that a few Galra were using, bolting back and forth from end to end. 

The traditional setup was more popular than the modern one, at least from the perspective of casual gym users. Those in military-grade exercise uniforms preferred the machines and weights, and Keith couldn’t help but agree with their choice. As a display, the traditional section won, but for effectiveness, the modern machines would prove better.

He spilt his hour and a half between a running on the treadmill at a steep incline and doing free weights. His strength as a Galra had increased, but after months of not working out, he found himself lagging behind where he should have been. Less weight, less reps, and less speed. He grit his teeth as he slogged through a workout that’d once taken him twenty minutes to do. Only his new form had kept him from degrading further. 

The treadmill was better. Not by much, but it was better. Hyladra ran beside him after she’d spotted for him. She didn’t speak, but her presence comforted him. His body may have no longer been in peak condition, but it’d be fixed if he went back to daily gym visits.

The Garrison’s gyms had offered only the finest facilities. It was mandatory to visit at least once a week-- whether it was simply for a run or for weight-training. The Garrison didn’t have a single bar of physical fitness. Being fat or slim didn’t matter. What mattered was a general fitness-- could you run? Could you lift the heavy parts of a ship? Did you have the endurance to pull long shifts? Those were the important things. Keith knew that someone like Hunk wouldn’t be viewed as ‘fit’ by many, but Hunk was fitter than most people, even at the Garrison. Keith didn’t know Hunk well, but he remembered seeing him at the Garrison’s gym every few days. Hunk had even used the firing range more than Keith.

There was no available firing range at the Palace’s gym. Keith had never been an eager user of the Garrison’s-- his experience with guns was limited, coming from Toronto, and he viewed them warily-- but he wished he could have refreshed his training on how to use guns. It would have been particularly useful now that he was rusty in physical fighting.

The showers attached to the gym through a corridor. Covered in sweat, particularly with the amount of fur he had, a simple dust bath wouldn’t be enough to get him clean for the party. The warm water soothed his sore muscles. He massaged scented oils into his fur, rubbed at his ears and pretended not to enjoy it, and combed his fur to a glossy sheen. Then, sopping wet and warm, as though he’d bathed in the sunlight for a few hours, he went into the side room. It was the drying room, full of blasting machines, both on the ceiling and along the walls. He parked himself beneath a whirring dryer. It fluffed his fur and dried deep, right to the skin.

When he left the drying room, his limbs were loose and his eyes droopy. Hyladra sniffed him when he got close. “You smell like cactus flowers,” she told him. “A good choice.”

He snuffled at his fur. He hadn’t really aimed for any specific smell, but the bottle of red oil and the heavy greenery smell had charmed him. It did, as Hyladra said, smell good. “Cool,” he said. It was like a refreshing glass of lemonade to speak like that. Nobody was there to give him a questioning look. All Hyladra did was shrug.

When they got back to his rooms, his party clothes were already laid out. The servants shepherded him away from the flowing robes, instead taking him to the sitting room. Combs, jewellery, and perfumes were carted out and slathered on to him. They coaxed his hair into generous waves and tied his long hair back in a high ponytail. Cloths dabbed in perfume were rubbed against his neck, wrists, and behind his ears. It was similar to the cactus flower scent, except sweeter, like that of fruit. 

The clothes on his bed were pleasingly loose. The pants were dark red embroidered with gold thread in a typical Galran style. The shirt was a simple, pure white, sheer and light against his chest. An over-robe of solid, deep purple had the thinness of linen but caressed his body like silk. If he could have slept in the clothes, he would have. But the servants kept primping him and the more they primped, the more some of them preened, as though Keith was only now becoming a true prince. 

When the rain began to fall, Keith was half-asleep from the hands in his hair. Someone had slipped a flower behind his ear, A series of bangles covered his left arm, while heavy necklaces rested on his chest. Where had any of this come from? He wasn’t sure. He suspected Zarkon had something to do with the strange rubies and gleaming amethysts. 

Hyladra roused him with a gentle shake. “My Prince,” she murmured. “It’s time to leave.”

Keith blinked, trying to drag himself from the fog of sleep. “Oh,” he managed. Hyladra had to help him to his feet. His jaw-cracking yawn interrupted any further questions.

“Would you like to bring anything along?” she asked.

Keith didn’t want to rub his eyes, but they were blurry and groggy and despite his very recent surgery, he rubbed the backs of his fingers over his closed eyes. The urge to stretch couldn’t be resisted either: his muscles and joints cracked and twitched and the small stretch turned fullbody. He didn’t have time to reflect on the movements before a pair of servants dove in to straighten his clothes and hair one last time before Hyladra led him from the apartment, into the Palace’s halls. Two people waited for him there: Volux, and his oldest servant. Volux wore a Druid’s traditional clothes, while the woman had clothed herself in dark, plain robes.

Both curtseyed to him, Volux notably less than the servant. “You look as pretty as the rain,” Volux said. That woke Keith up more than anything else. “You are prepared for the party, then?”

Keith looked down at himself. He looked… uncharacteristic. To put it kindly. The clothes were simple in colour and cut, but he felt their expense and the embroidered gold thread were like rays of sunlight. The over-robe belonged on a wealthy man lazing at his beach house, not on him. Keith forced a smile, though. “I am, Master Druid.”

Volux led them down through the Palace. They didn’t use the elevators. The stairs bustled with activity, as though the rain had brought the Palace to life. People went down every hall, dressed in their finest clothes. “There are roughly a dozen rain-viewing parties,” Volux told him. “None will be as grand as the Emperor’s, but even the least of the Galra should drink deep from the kindness of the clouds.”

And Volux told Keith he spoke oddly. It had to be part of the Druid persona. Or maybe persona wasn’t a good word for it: Volux was a Druid, even if they were a snide bastard in private. 

The stairs led to the main hall, from which Volux led them to the back, towards giant sets of glass doors. The doors were open, allowing Keith to marvel at the rain that splashed down, giving life to the plants and Galra alike. The  hall they walked down widened, giving ample room for statues and paintings. The salt walls were illuminated brightly. It gave the hall warmth that it didn’t truly earn.

The glass doors didn’t let him look at the sky. They framed a neatly pruned jungle of plants of so many colours: pink blossoms, red vines, blue leaves, yellow trees. Water droplets slid off the foliage. Something deep in Keith released: tension flowed free, and Keith could almost imagine he was back on Earth. The damp reddish sand had turned to an almost-purple hue, like it did at night. His light shoes didn’t have to touch it: thick carpets had been laid out. On top of it, tables, chairs, and slender couches were scattered about. Highbrow Galra lounged on every surface available. Some had treats in hand. At the centre of the party, Zarkon waited atop a throne of white, resplendent in red and black. 

He smiled when he saw Keith and beckoned him close with a single, ungloved hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update on the 12th! In the meantime, find me at the-wenzel.tumblr.com. :3


	3. Chapter 3

He’d learned, years ago at a communal pool, how long he could hold his breath. He’d gone to the pool on a sweltering summer day. Smog choked Toronto, and there was no air conditioning in the orphanage. It’d been deemed too expensive to install in the old building, and there were so many windows for a breeze anyway, one of the assistants had told him once. Nobody had really believed it. The assistants carried around bottles of water and fans were set up every day through August. The younger kids congregated around them, desperate for their breeze. Older ones slunk out of the orphanage in the morning, heading for the library, pools, or even the shade of parks. Younger kids watched them jealously.

Keith preferred the YMCA. The air-conditioned building had pools, gym machines, dance clubs, and other community events. When he wasn’t doing that, when he got older, he usually worked. But on that day-- the fourteenth of August-- he’d decided to try something different. 

The communal pool for the neighbourhood rested in a cramped space between two apartment buildings. Surrounded by chain link fence, it had enough room for two dozen people to squeeze into the gently sloped pool. Its deep end couldn’t be called truly deep, but then the pool was meant for young kids and teens. Parents waited on lawn and and tanning chairs. A small concession truck would park in front of the pool. The lucky people would get ice cream, pop, and chocolate bars.

He hadn’t been comfortable at the pool. Part of the reason he’d gone was to try to become less awkward. His social worker had told him he’d never learned to talk to people without actually talking to people. He’d thought her right. So he used an old pair of shorts and ragged t-shirt, and visited the pool in the late afternoon. 

He’d hoped for courage. There were kids his age there. They laughed and played and scuttled around the pool, oblivious to their parents’ watchful gazes. Yet whenever one of the kids looked at him, he couldn’t meet their eyes. 

People noticed. Most had the grace to spare him teasing or awkward conversation. But a pair of other boys-- white if a bit sunburnt, and a few years older-- needled at him. Keith had only replied with short words.  _ Yes, no, I guess, sometimes _ . The boys smirked and snickered and shared long, smug looks. 

They didn’t call him slurs. They didn’t spit poisonous insults at him and smile. But his skin crawled as they spoke to him, like every word was laced with an accusation that he was the outsider. Surrounded by adults, neither of the boys dared cause a scene.They didn’t need to shout to make him curl in on himself. 

Leaving meant giving up on friends, though. He dipped into the water and paddled. He tried to avoid getting near groups. Individuals were better for friend-making, he’d thought at the time, almost crazed in desperation. Yet all the awkward conversations he sparked ended in people leaving. 

When the sun began to set, most people had returned home for supper. Keith sat at the edge of the pool, his feet dipped into the cool water. The boys lurked around him. Every time, they asked him how he was doing. “Where’s your mom?” one of them finally asked. 

Keith shrugged. “Not here,” he’d said. 

The boy, ginger and green-eyed, grinned. “And your dad?”

“Not here,” he repeated. He hunched in on himself. The clock above the empty lifeguard chair said it was a little past six. “Why do you keep talking to me?”

Looking back, he never would have said it. It was awkward and begged for someone to take offense. Which the ginger did: “Why shouldn’t I talk to you?” the boy said. “You think you’re better than us?”

Twelve year old Keith had looked up at him, wide-eyed. “What?”

“C’mon,” the boy had crooned as he sat beside Keith. He stretched an arm around Keith’s shoulders. “We could be friends, you know.”

The other boy laughed. Keith glanced at him, confused. “Is that why you’ve been talking to me?” he asked, tentative. All his unease at the strange comments and snide looks vanished in the promise of friends. Maybe it’d been a good idea to come. 

“Nah,” the ginger said, and shoved him into the pool. 

All Keith could hear was the water in his ears and the hyena-like cackling of the other boy. Keith choked on filthy water; when he tried to get to the surface, the ginger held him under. His eyes burned when he opened them. Eyes the shade of moss held laughter and cruelty, the cruelty that only children had. 

_ You could have killed him _ , the boy’s mother would later scream at him. 

_ No one would have cared, _ had been in the boy’s eyes when he looked at Keith, venomous and hateful. 

The other boy-- the watching one-- had parents who’d blamed Keith for what happened. Keith had to have provoked the boys. Why was he at the pool alone? Maybe the lifeguard had returned to find the boys defending themselves.

Only the lifeguard, a young woman who’d found the boys trying to drown Keith, had defended him until an orphanage worker and his social worker arrived. The lifeguard had returned from the bathroom in time to perform first aid and lock the boys inside the pool area. “They were trying to run,” she told the police later. “They knew they were doing something wrong.”

There hadn’t been a magical moment after that. Keith never went back to the pool. He didn’t hear about the boys’ fates. The social worker tried to get him a therapist, but resources were tight. All it did was emphasize that he needed to be able to defend himself. The combat lessons came soon after-- he qualified for a community grant at first, but he eventually got a job and paid for it himself. 

He’d learned, since then, not how to make friends but more how to avoid those who’d hurt him. The quiet voice in the back of his mind, the one that snarled and hissed at other people, became louder. It wasn’t him being an awkward problem child anymore: it was a survival strategy. 

At the rain-watching party, it proved more a hindrance than anything else. People flocked to him, all with questions on how he enjoyed the Palace and Gal. “Returning to your people,” a supercilious official said, “is a brave act. You set an example for every Blackmouth, and the Voice will reward you for it.”

Keith stood beside Zarkon, a forced smile pasted on his face. He bowed his head to every person who came, desperate to hide his annoyance and growing fury. Zarkon would sometimes reach out and stroke Keith’s hand. It didn’t help the stress.

A servant brought him a chair after the first dozen visitors. White and smaller than Zarkon’s throne, it looked like a matching set to Zarkon. Keith sat on it only when he saw a line building.  A glass of Mahadra water, a plate of little treats, and an animal was placed on a table beside him. 

The creature was a slender, furry thing, almost like a lizard. He didn’t know its purpose. It just kept sticking its tongue out into the air like a snake. A pair of red eyes, tucked deep inside the fur, stared at him. Its arms were short, but its fur long.

He wanted to ask Zarkon about it, but there were too many people around. “Prince Caith,” said a familiar voice. Keith’s mind froze. He turned away from the furry lizard to see another furry reptile, in Galra form. 

Sendak. The man didn’t seem to know who ‘Caith’ was, at least. Sendak did a lazy half wawu, a Galran curtsey, but he spoke to Caith with respect. “I hope you find the warmth of Gal a proper welcome.”

Keith nodded slowly. “The cold of my former home planet was… severe.” He’d been told that, at least. “While Gal is an adjustment, its beauty is undeniable.” He glanced at Zarkon, as though looking for his approval. In reality, he wanted to see if Zarkon had told anything to Sendak.

Zarkon smiled at him. It didn’t reassure Keith. Zarkon spoke. “As my soldier,” Zarkon said, “I trust in you to protect our guest.”

Sendak gave a solemn nod. “Of course, Emperor. I will guard our guest and brother in the Voice with all my strength.”

Shit, Keith thought. Shit, fuck, and damn. He wanted Sendak to be planets away from him, not ordered to guard his life. He bowed his head at Sendak, though, for the sake of politeness. “Thank you,” Keith said. How fast could he get Sendak to forget the promise, if Sendak’s promise was more than words?

As the rain worsened, a light awning was pulled over the party. Zarkon shifted in his seat, and the line in front of Keith dispersed like sand in the wind. “You look tired,” Zarkon murmured. Sendak pulled away, taking up a post beside a table laden with meats. “Shall we walk?”

“Please,” he said. Zarkon stood. The entire party did wawus. Zarkon turned, offering him a large, bare hand. Keith took it grudgingly.

From the chair, Zarkon led him out from underneath the awning, along a wet stone path. The party’s din faded. A dozen steps back, Hyladra and another officer followed them. Zarkon paid them no mind. He looked to Keith as they walked. Heavy rain poured onto them. It turned Keith’s clothes sopping wet, but the desert was still warm so he didn’t freeze. 

“The attention ill fits you,” Zarkon said.

Keith looked to the dark, grey sky. The sun tried to burn through the clouds, but they choked the rays. “It’s tiring,” he said. The rain dripped down his cheeks. “Everyone’s agendas are on display.”

“Can you read them?” Zarkon asked. 

“No,” Keith admitted. “But I feel the push and pull with every person who speaks to me.” He reached up and brushed the rain into his hair. The relief from the heat made him sigh. “I have so many questions.” 

Zarkon hummed in agreement. “Understandable. What would you like to know, Caith?”

“...Are you sure you should be offering that?” Keith looked at Zarkon. His face was mild and open, a strange expression for Zarkon. “Information is power.”

“One of the truest forms, yes.” Zarkon drew to a stop beside a plant bigger than most Galra: Wide and tall, it looked almost like a cactus-- except its flesh was red, there were no needles, and blossoms the colour of a tropical sea covered every inch. “Let me say, Caith, that I have enough of the power for every person in the Empire. Sharing some with a newfound ally is of little consequence.”

Was Keith an ally? Caith was. It was public, so the charade had to continue, but even the statement felt like an accusation. “Your graciousness is appreciated, Emperor,” he said. What did he want to know, though? Start small, he decided. “What was the creature placed beside me?”

Zarkon’s content expression turned to something mischievous. “I almost thought you were going to touch it,” Zarkon said. “It would have been a slight scandal, though your heritage as a Blackmouth would have saved you from ignominy. The creature is a  _ bru _ . In tradition, they were given as welcome to dignitaries and nobility.”

“They’re pets?”

Zarkon actually laughed. “No, no, not at all. It was a traditional that the guest would eat the  _ bru _ before the end of their welcome party.”

“ _ What _ ?” Keith said. “They were going to take it and cook it for me?” He tried to keep his expression neutral, but he knew he looked distressed.

“Take heart, Caith: well before my time, you would have been obligated to eat it raw and alive, I have long since ended the less distasteful parts of the practice.” Zarkon smiled down at him. “The  _ bru _ will be returned to the kennels and used for other ceremonies.”

Keith almost sighed in relief. “But it’s a scandal to touch them. Even if it’s just… pets?” He paused. “Not that I was going to pet it.”

“Of course not,” Zarkon said, but his sly smile belied his words. “To acknowledge such a creature would mean you were soft. That’s why it was eaten, historically: to prove to onlookers the power and iron in an individual.”

Keith imagined the outrage that must have happened when Zarkon ended the practice. He approved of it ending-- the bru was a small animal whose only defense looked like speed-- but he knew the Galra enjoyed their power displays. Which brought him back to the thorn in his side, the image of the black-robed Druids parading into Central Command, banners and escorts.

“What of those black-robed Druids I saw?” he asked softly. “I was told not to ask after them at the time, but no one’s mentioned it since.”

Zarkon’s breathing didn’t hitch. He didn’t look away, but his gaze turned considering, as though he were picking Keith apart. “Do not blame them for being so evasive, Caith. The Sorrowsingers are a dangerous weapon.”

Sorrowsingers. “That’s not a reassuring name for them,” Keith said dryly. “They do the purgings. But why is everyone so afraid of them? Even people loyal to you.”

Zarkon took his time replying. They traversed deeper into the gardens, which stretched for miles. The rain drenched their clothes, but Keith couldn’t help but feel clean for once. Years on Earth had acclimated him to the idea of water equalling cleanliness. His time as a Galra could be measured in weeks. He’d already had a shower that day, but there was something much more restorative in the rain. Part of him knew that, when he returned to his rooms, he would slip onto the balcony and rest under the awning. If the rain lasted, at least.

“The Sorrowsingers,” Zarkon finally said, “are a, shall we say,  _ devout _ group. Their duty is to find corruption and weakness and purge it. They are chosen by High Druid Haggar for their lack of attachments to the Galra and their fierce love for the Voice. Those like the Clarion would fear even the name of the Sorrowsingers, and my own Galra worry that their missteps would earn the Sorrowsingers’ attentions.”

Keith chewed the inside of his cheek. It was a delicate tic: with his new teeth, he could pierce the flesh easily. “...Are they right to worry?”

Zarkon didn’t answer immediately. It didn’t reassure Keith. “The Sorrowsingers look for doubt and treason. The former can be educated out of a Galra; the latter is to be purged. So long as they believe in my vision, they are safe.”

Not true, Keith thought. What qualified as doubt? Would Thace have been a victim of the Sorrowsingers for helping Wrin? What about Hyladra, who hid Wrin’s treason from Zarkon? Neither Thace nor Hyladra hated Zarkon. Both fought in his name and prayed to the Voice. 

“How are people educated?” Keith asked. The word, in Zarkon’s mouth, had an Orwellian bent. For the Galra, to be so evasive on violence seemed strange. He glanced over his shoulder, as though the Sorrowsingers would appear. Hyladra watched him, expressionless, as she walked beside the other guard, a hulking woman dressed in thick armour. 

Zarkon reached over and flicked his ponytail with a lone finger. Keith jumped at the touch. He jerked around, glaring at Zarkon. Jewellery jingled whenever he moved. His ponytail bounced with him; Zarkon’s touch had loosened the hair tie’s grip. Zarkon grinned at him, his purple eyes full of mirth. “A simple touch, and you’re ready to fight!” Zarkon placed a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Enjoy the rain, Prince Caith. And my company as well, if that appeals to you.”

Zarkon was still damnably warm. The weight of his hand didn’t help: the pressure released something inside him, and Keith had to force his eyelids not to droop. “How often does it rain?” he asked instead. 

“Rarely,” Zarkon said. “A few times a month.” He pulled his hand away. The sudden splatter of rain jolted Keith to reality. “It lasts an hour or two before we return to the heat of the desert. The rain will care for the gardens, though, and we will drink of it for many weeks.”

Keith looked up at the sky. Zarkon stopped beside him. The man almost blocked out the rain: he was so much taller than Keith, and wider too. Keith grimaced. “You’re too tall,” he told Zarkon. “You’re like a brick wall.”

Zarkon smiled. “And you’re like a reed,” Zarkon returned. “You bend and sway in the wind, but you’ll snap at legs of anyone who comes near.” Zarkon reached up again, as though about to touch Keith’s cheek. His hand darted past Keith’s head. His claws pinched the hair tie and pulled it free. Keith’s hair cascaded down to his shoulders. Zarkon tossed the hair tie away, into the dirt and roots of the garden’s floor. Made of silk, it would rot under the rain’s onslaught. The plants would devour it as another offering.

Zarkon traced the flow of his hair from his scalp, down his neck, and to his shoulderblades. His claws left no marks. His light touch threatened what Zarkon could do: in his palace, among his people, on his planet inside his empire, Keith was a prisoner.

Yet Zarkon pulled away. Keith’s skin tingled where Zarkon had touched. In the distance, the party continued, its faint din made of laughter and gossip. What did they think of Emperor Zarkon leaving the party to talk to a low-ranking prince? What would they say about his touch and fascination with Keith’s hair?

“Let us return to the party,” Zarkon said. “There’s a ceremony to hold before the rain ends.”

When Keith turned around, Hyladra stared at him, wide-eyed. She bowed her head, but he knew she had a thousand questions. What she didn’t know was that Keith had no answers. Zarkon could have killed or maimed him. Even-- and he hated to vocalize it, as though that made the threat more real-- could have raped him. 

Why did the thought feel traitorous? As though Zarkon would never engage in something so evil while Keith knew full well the man destroyed planets and civilizations. And yet, the guilt didn’t disperse. One evil didn’t mean someone engaged in all evils.  Even evil had standards.

They didn’t speak as they walked back. Keith made no effort to retie his hair: there was nothing to use, and he knew Zaron would simply undo it anyway. How much gossip would it spawn? People would notice. Zarkon’s soft touches to his shoulder and hand as they moved-- little brushes that could be dismissed as accidental-- didn’t help his thought process.

When he and Zarkon left the deeper parts of the garden, Keith blinked. The party’s activity had faded. He tried to see between the trunks and stems of the garden’s lush plants, but they were too thick. Zarkon huffed out a soft laugh. “They’re not gone,” he was told. “They’re waiting for the ritual to begin.”

Keith squinted at the still-grey and still-raining sky. “Ritual?”

“The rain is a luxury, Caith.” Zarkon held out a cupped hand. Rain began to pool in its creases. “While we know the science of rain-- can even force its arrival-- nature blessing us with it is a rare event. In return, we show our thanks but renew our duty to the Empire. Parties like this should be a rarity, or we will become weak.”

It was an almost Spartan ideology. The Galra needed to be cleansed of their ‘decadence’ in enjoying the rain. The rain that kept them alive, turned the desert into something tolerable, and let them bond at parties. It was dumb but also distinctly Galra.

When he saw the party again, the attendees surrounded a fire pit. Its fire crackled and snapped, and cinders were grabbed by the storm’s winds sent over the watching crowd. Volux stood in front of the pit. They held a poker and prodded at the logs, coaxing them to greater and greater flame.

What did they think of the Sorrowsingers? They and Thace had never given him an answer to the sect’s identities, as though afraid that Keith might… what? Draw their attention? Dig too deep into their history? All Keith cared about was avoiding them and having those he cared about ignored. Most of his friends and acquaintances were off Central Command, except for Kymin. Kymin, he reflected, whose strange behaviour about the Voice had troubled Keith at the time. He hoped it was a fervent fanaticism and nothing else. 

Zarkon placed a hand at the small of Keith’s back. Keith tried not to stiffen as he was led through the staring crowd, to the fire pit. Everyone did a wawu-- their legs only slightly crossed as they kneeled low. As they did, they watched Keith. Jealousy flickered in some Galras’ eyes. Others merely watched with curiosity, though their passive faces hinted at hidden thoughts. Poker faces, small smiles, and then there was Sendak. His smile involved teeth and a ferocious glee that belonged on a hungry wolf who’d found new prey.

He felt Zarkon laugh. It didn’t help the sinking feeling in his gut. So much, he thought, for going unnoticed. Zarkon stopped them at the fire’s side. “Druid,” Zarkon said and inclined his head to Volux.

Volux didn’t have their usual grumpy sourness. Even they did a wawu. “Emperor, the ritual is almost ready to begin.” They motioned at a red sack. Even with the smoke, rain, and plants, Keith smelled the salt. “On your word, I will conjure Her presence to the Palace.”

Zarkon removed his hand from Keith’s back. It didn’t stop the stares. “Let us cleanse ourselves. Begin, Druid.”

The Voice was coming. Terror made him tense. Did a purifying ceremony really need the Voice? He couldn’t say it. All he could do was watch Volux pluck from their satchel herbs and powders. All were thrown into the fire. The flames turned from orange, to red, to purple, and then to white. Volux chanted in Old Galran. 

The other Galra murmured prayers, hummed hymns, and whispered to each other. Keith tried to keep smiling at the fire. What was Zarkon thinking? He’d made Keith a prominent target. He was Zarkon’s new favourite to the other Galra: it didn’t matter that it wasn’t true, that Keith was just a prisoner and Paladin. He was the mysterious new prince from a foreign yet familiar people and Zarkon’s newest object of fascination. 

People had been killed for less. And Keith knew there were Clarion at the Palace. 

Volux’s voice rose, thunderous and keening. He didn’t know what the words meant, but he felt their plea. The fire’s crackle deafened. Whatever they’d poured into it, it’d turned the smoke a vivid crimson: the wind pushed it over the crowd. Flowers, bitterness, and salt perfumed the garden. “Listen,” Zarkon murmured to him.

Keith blinked. Wasn’t he already listening? But his brows furrowed, and he searched for something, anything else. Volux began a low chant. That was when he heard it: a bee’s buzz, with the crystal chimes of glass and metal. It was as if an orchestra thundered away in the distance. Keith stared at the fire. The foreign sound deepened like a chasm; when it did, something in his memory stirred.

It was the Voice and her Chorus. Volux had summoned it. He glanced at Zarkon, not sure what he hoped to find. The man’s eyes were glued to the white fire. When Keith looked at the other Galra, their gazes were vacant, staring at the sky or fire. Keith looked back at Volux. The Druid rocked and chanted as the red smoke thickened.

Keith was going to be taken by the Voice. She’d done it every other time. Whenever she came close, she grabbed him and pulled him into her world and understanding. He braced himself. His skin prickled as energy brushed against his sense. His breathing hitched.

The power passed him by. He heard around him gentle gasps and murmurs of prayer. The Voice didn’t speak to him, nor did she linger. Keith blinked at the fire. Volux kept chanting, as though nothing strange had happened. Zarkon stood beside him, immovable as a mountain and as unconcerned as Keith had ever seen him. Confusion followed concern. Why hadn’t the Voice paid him mind? 

When Volux stopped, the entire audience seemed to sigh in a mixture of relief and disappointment. Keith tried to keep his expression neutral. His thoughts raced. Did she see him as an average Galra now? Or did she realize his situation and want to do him the kindness of not causing a scene? He doubted she understood mortals like that. Sparing him her attention required her to understand social dynamics, lying, and Keith’s changing circumstances.

Volux stood and motioned to the red bag. “Let us cleanse ourselves of decadence and waste,” Volux declared. “A few grains for each of us. Renew your vow to the Voice’s fire, in front of our Emperor.” They cut the bag open with an obsidian knife. It contained a gold-tinted salt.

“Prince Caith,” Volux said. “As this is your first celebration, you must go first. Take your duty and give it to the Voice and the Emperor.”

Keith forced himself not to slink over to the salt. Its fine grains were sharp; they dug through his fur, to his skin, He stood in front of the fire, keenly aware of all the eyes on him. Volux stood to his side. “Think of your joy,” Volux said, voice soft. “Think of the relief you felt at the falling rain. The food you ate, the dances you danced, and the conversations you had. Those were gifts from the Voice and Emperor. But as this rain weakens, you will be pulled from that world of luxury. Duty will return. Every grain of salt in your mind and body is no longer yours when the rain ends: it belongs to the Empire, your Emperor, and the Voice. Show your devotion to your duty.”

Keith tried not to shudder. He held out the few grains of salt above the white fire. The high flames were almost close enough to lick his fingers. Their heat made him want to cringe back. He ignored the impulses: he sprinkled the pinch of salt into the fire. It popped and crackled, and the flames tinged gold.

Volux nodded at him. “Return to your duties, Prince Caith, and remember that the heat of your blood should fade against the salt of duty.”

Keith returned to Zarkon’s side as person after person performed the ritual. Nobody looked awkward or surprised at it: Sendak took his salt and gave Zarkon a deep wawu after. Every person at the party-- all Galra, he noted-- gave some signal to the Voice or Zarkon of their gratitude. Keith tried not to shift where he stood. 

When the partiers finished, Volux took a handful of salt and threw it over the fire. The fire turned a brilliant vivid gold just before it began to die. “It is finished,” they said, even as the rain continued to fall. “Return to your posts, and sing songs in memory of this time.”

The crowd only left when Zarkon turned away from them, toward one of the ravaged food tables. “Are you still hungry, Caith? I’m afraid I took you away before you could eat properly.”

“I’m fine,” Keith said, mostly on instinct. His stomach clenched, desperate for food. A raindrop splattered on the tip of his nose and he couldn’t help but scrunch up his face. “I should probably go dry off.”

Zarkon seemed to ponder that. “I’ll have the kitchens send you a proper meal,” he decided. He reached up and brushed away the droplets on Keith’s nose. Zarkon’s warm touch sent chills through Keith. “Do try to get more rest, Caith. You look exhausted between this and the gym.”

And then Zarkon walked away, leaving Keith to grapple with the thought that Zarkon knew his movements. It wasn’t unexpected. It made sense to track Keith. But the sinking feeling in his stomach worsened. How closely was Keith being watched? Not that, he reminded himself, a close watch would have been needed to notice Keith going to the gym. He shook his head, his long hair flopping with the movement. He needed to get back to his room and dry off.

Hyladra came to his side. “Well.”

Keith ran a hand through his hair. His claws dragged across his scalp. “I was supposed to be just another person,” he said ruefully. “So much for that.”

Hyladra scrutinized the dying fire. “If the Emperor believes it right for you to be notable, I suppose it is for the best. Take heart, Caith. At least you’re getting a meal out of it.”

Her sly tone didn’t soothe his foul mood. Volux nudged another log away from the coals. They spoke as they worked. “The Emperor cares for his lovers.”

“We’re not lovers,” Keith snapped. 

Hyladra shrugged at him. “The Emperor hopes otherwise.” She brushed his loose hair back from his cheek. “Let us go back to the rooms, Caith. The Emperor was right when he said you looked tired.”

Volux didn’t follow them. Hyladra escorted him back through the Palace’s glass doors. There the older servant waited for them. Wide-eyed and almost gleeful, she seemed to examine Keith’s face. “He undid your hair,” she whispered. Her hands clasped together, below her chin. Her gold eyes glittered.

“The tie fell off,” Keith said. 

The woman nodded. “Of course,” she said. “Most certainly, my Prince.” She did a wawu. “My apologies for my forwardness.” She didn’t sound an ounce sorry.

Keith grit his teeth. “We need to dry off, and I’m tired.” Hyladra and the woman agreed, even offered coats for warmth, and Hyladra held out her hand for him at the stairs, as though he’d lost a leg and not his dignity. 

The halls were packed with people returning from the rain-watching parties. Among the crowd, he was nobody special. None of them knew yet that Zarkon had taken him aside, undone his hair, and held him close. They’d know soon, he thought grimly, if the grapevine at the Palace was anything like the Garrison’s or Central Command’s. When they got to the elevator, they shared it with other talking Galra. 

The Duke’s party had featured alcohol, and some other Galra had embarrassed themselves. The Minister of War had brought dancers, one of which had charmed an officer named Prorok. It seemed Galra lived on gossip like they did air.

Keith tried not to sag in relief when they reached his rooms. Outside the windows, the rain still fell, if lightly; the servants descended on him, leading him to the bathroom. His clothes were stripped off and they hurried him to the bathroom’s dryer. One servant stood behind him, a brush in hand as they combed his fur. A small towel protected Keith’s privates from view. 

More oils were rubbed into his fur. A woman worked at his hair, combing it before tying it once again in a high ponytail. Hyladra stood at the doorway. Her eyes followed every servant’s movements, as though they were a potential danger.

The older servant woman organized the comings and goings. Keith wished he knew her name. He suspected she was going to keep being important, but how did he ask without causing offense? Hyladra probably knew the name. He just needed to catch her alone.

When it came time to dry his privates, most of the servants left. Only the older woman remained and a lone Galra man who looked about Keith’s age. The man took his towel and had the grace to avert his eyes as Keith quickly dried himself. 

They dressed him in a filmy light blue robe, baggy white pants, and a slim shirt of an almost-mesh material. As he headed for the balcony, the older servant woman stopped him. She clasped a letter in her hands and bowed deep. “A letter for you, my Prince,” she said. He took it. The thick red paper had his Galran name written. It looked too perfect to be anything but machine-done. “It arrived minutes ago.”

“Thank you,” Keith said. “The sender--?”

“They said it came from an admirer,” the woman said. “But that may have been the exuberance of the servant girl and not the messenger’s words.” Her lips twitched. “I’m sure you’ll find the truth in the letter, my Prince.”

He nodded, though he doubted that. He couldn’t read the letter, after all, and even a few lines would take hours of work in private to figure out. Giving the letter to Hyladra felt embarrassing: who knew what the admirer-- likely Zarkon-- would say in private? Or if he meant for Hyladra to ever see the letter? It was possible that Zarkon had sent it with the hopes that Keith would spend the rest of the day puzzling out his words.

He didn’t give the letter to Hyladra on the balcony, and she didn’t ask for it. When he asked for his ‘personal tablet’, a bit of nudging through the bond let her know what he meant. “Are you sure?” she murmured. 

“I can do it,” he said. When she brought it, he almost started picking apart the tangled writing. The process would be slow: symbols would need to be turned into sentences, which would need to be turned into words then letters before he turned to the dictionary

He peeled open the envelope. It was square and long, and the paper inside was a crisp black with golden lettering on it. The message was small-- ridiculously so. Three large symbols tangled in the centre of the letter. A lone signature at the bottom identified the sender. 

What did Zarkon want to tell him? Probably another party, or a potential invite to speak alone. Both would cause more gossip. He turned on his tablet and moved to the dictionary icon. But then a thought struck him.

There had to be blind Galra. There was an ebook feature for the tablets, so wouldn’t the tablet also read what he’d written to him, thus allowing him to understand the letter? He went to the writing app. A digital keyboard sprung into being, offering him several dozen parts to build sections of the symbols from. There was no simplified keyboard on offer.

It made transcribing the letter agonizing. He mentally thanked Zarkon for the writing being done via machine, and not by hand. Hyladra left after the first sentence: she said she had business to attend to. He curled up against the chaise lounge’s pillows and typed away.

The rain had stopped when he finished. He couldn’t spot any differences between the letter and his typed text. He breathed deep and slipped the earbuds in. The text-to-speech function was a lone, fluffy Galran ear with jagged lines entering it. He pressed it before he could second guess his transcription.

_ Prince Caith _ , the software’s voice said, shockingly smooth for a machine.  _ You’ve sworn your salt to the Voice, under the watchful eye of the Emperor. But you have questions about what you’ve seen that Emperor will not answer, and you fear to voice them. I offer information in return for a meeting: when the Palace clock strikes thirteen, I shall wait for you by the river blue, atop the coiled tower. _

**_Marmora._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update on the 19th Atlantic-time! In the meantime, you can find me at the-wenzel.tumblr.com. <3


	4. Chapter 4

He stared at the letter. He almost chucked it off the balcony like it was on fire. Two thoughts dominated his mind: one, that he had  _ many _ questions, and that Zarkon wouldn’t answer them; second, that if Zarkon caught him holding on to the letter, Keith would very quickly lose the privileges he’d marvelled at earlier. The smooth but substantial paper in his hands equalled a poisonous snake in Zarkon’s home. Keith didn’t need to wonder what Zarkon would do to the snake. 

Marmora thought he was Prince Caith. They didn’t know he was Keith, or at least hadn’t admitted to it yet. What did they want from him? ‘Help’ spanned everything from assassination to information to simple obstruction. 

That assumed the letter wasn’t a test of his loyalty too. He could see Zarkon crafting the letter, sending it, and then waiting for Keith to turn up at his door, ready to sell out Marmora. After the rain-watching party, though, did Zarkon have that kind of ruthlessness to Keith’s plight? How would he react if Keith simply disposed of the letter and said nothing else?

Ideally, Zarkon would fawn over him and ignore Keith’s failings. It was strange to want Zarkon, Emperor of the Galra and scourge of countless worlds, doting on him like a courting lover but for all the fear the concept spawned, it was better than Zarkon being angry with him. As a prized ornament, he could manipulate things, and the thought almost made him laugh. Because he was thinking like a snakish Galra yet still underestimating Zarkon. 

The Emperor knew exactly what he was doing. Keith didn’t. The fawning could be Zarkon having fun or distracting Keith from important questions. He squinted down at the letter. Zarkon had undone his hair tie just as Keith asked what re-educating meant. It wasn’t a positive sign, even if Keith believed Zarkon enjoyed the light touches he gave Keith.

All of it still left him with the letter in hand. He stuffed it back into its envelope, sealed it, and dragged himself up. His legs were half-asleep from all his work. Food surrounded him, untouched, and while Keith had no appetite, food was a good distraction from his problem. He took a handful of black nuts and tried to enjoy the satisfying crunch they made when he bit down. They tasted earthy with a floral aftertaste. A dish of some sort of cream had been placed beside the bowl. He dipped one nut into it. The cream smelled sweet, and it proved sweeter against his tongue. It wasn’t Earth’s version of sweetness, heavy in corn syrup and beet sugar; it was Gal’s version of sweet, similar to nectar. It was a natural sweetness that didn’t promise future health problems.

When he tired of the nuts, he tried to find something else to dip into the cream. Slices of a meal-bread, like cornbread, were placed beside a dish of what he assumed was gheron butter. Which might have been a thing, but he couldn’t remember Kymin talking about it. He dipped the slices into the cream and nibbled on the tip. The cream clumped the mealy bread together, and the bread’s natural sweetness intensified the nectar in the cream.

Knowing he’d need something that wasn’t a dessert, he picked apart a roast bird. Slathered in oil and herbs, fruits surrounded it. He ignored the growing panic that turned his stomach. Without substantial food, he’d find himself further exhausted. He added some odd root vegetables and chunks of what he thought were de-needled cactus. 

The huge meal went largely untouched. The tables around him were piled with food, and he tried not to feel guilty as he stood, stretched, and walked away. A servant waited for him at the balcony entrance. “The food,” he couldn’t help but ask; “it won’t be disposed of? I’d prefer to, ah, save it.” Was that a sign of weakness?

The servant’s expression said nothing. She nodded and hurried off, and it left Keith to slink into his room. The ceiling’s daytime black had lightened, but only slightly. Dusk inched over the sky. He’d skip dinner, he decided. And… what? Brood in his bedroom over the letter? He held back a gusty sigh. 

Sitting at a desk didn’t help. Servants popped in to deliver drinks or check on him. He didn’t have the heart to tell them to all go away. The tablet had little on it other than a few books-- he put one on as background noise as he pretended to work. The letter rested in his pocket. The cool paper scorched his thigh where it touched.

He was fucked. It was a not-so-subtle sinking feeling that tried to drag him into a mire of depression. Make a choice, the letter insisted. Go to Zarkon, meet Marmora, or dispose of the letter and never look back. Doing the first and last placed him squarely on Zarkon’s side. Going to Marmora opened himself up for attack and more guards. But with Hyladra, Sendak, Volux, his servants, and the rest of the Palace watching, how could the surveillance increase?

It’d require taking Keith to the true deserts of Gal. Keith didn’t doubt that Zarkon would do it, even if it caused a scandal at his court for Prince Caith to go missing. Keith the Red Paladin was excellent bait for Team Voltron to return to Zarkon’s grasp, bringing with them the Black Lion, so Keith wouldn’t die as long as he obeyed Zarkon and didn’t step out of place in the Emperor’s galactic chessboard. What Keith didn’t know was the the most vital part of a game: what piece was he? A simple pawn? Or had Keith been granted more powers since he’d stopped Zarkon’s assassination?

As Caith, he was a pretty pawn. He knew that. His servants fussed over his hair and fur, and they dressed him in fine clothes and jewellery. He’d gone to the rain-watching party and played Zarkon’s newest find. Months ago, it would have done more than make him uncomfortable. It would have turned his mind to a blinding rage.

Now, he accepted it. His survival at the Palace didn’t rely on how well he punched or how quick he struck. It depended on how well he played his role and how much favour he earned from Zarkon. The frustration burned in his veins, but it had nothing of the molten anger he’d felt when he was first captured. 

He tried to focus on the tablet’s words.  _ Her fur, shaggy and dark, revealed her descent from the Koyo Valley. She spoke in gentle tones, as though those around her were simpletons. It was the arrogance of her race: Koyans believed themselves the origins of Galra math and science, though the Vrikkans would argue otherwise. _

He tore the earbuds off. It wasn’t helping. He kept avoiding the blunt question: did he play the model prisoner, or did he start hedging his bets? He didn’t think the Paladins were coming. He was on Gal, no longer in his right human form, and he had a tight guard. Escape rested on Keith’s side of the court. 

Meeting Marmora, he thought, could be practice for an inevitable escape. Since it was into the city, if he was caught by Zarkon’s forces, he could claim that he was restless and wanted to see the city. Zarkon wouldn’t buy it, but Keith could cling to the lie. 

What if Marmora was a Clarion, though? Would the Clarion use such a ruse? They weren’t above trickery. But that was if Keith bothered to meet them-- he didn’t have to if he simply explored the city. Keith stared down at the tablet and its symbols. He wanted out. The Palace’s bars dug into his skin. It’d been a day-- only a  _ day _ \-- and he felt like he’d been in its walls for months. Maybe he had been: Central Command was his old cage, and he’d never been able to go beyond its confines. 

Now, in Vrikka, the Galran capital, civilian life surrounded him. If he left the palace walls, he would no longer be Prince Caith or a prisoner. He’d be just another Galra. He could even get information on where the Red Lion was, Voltron’s movements, and what was happening in the Empire. Yet the risks were huge, and not just for him.

What would happen to Hyladra if he escaped? He didn’t know what a ‘Hani’ truly meant, but he translated it to ‘bodyguard’. She acted as such on Zarkon’s behalf. She reported to Zarkon, in the end, and while she and Keith were friends, he didn’t doubt that she’d stop him if she knew what he planned. She’d get in deep trouble if he escaped. Zarkon might even think she had helped, particularly if she reported his escape late.

Another servant knocked on the door. “Prince Caith,” they called out. “The Emperor invites you to dine with him.”

He could go and ask Zarkon the questions he had about the Galra. Yet Zarkon might do what he’d done before: distract Keith, lead him to the casual flirting, and then shower him with luxuries. Was the flirting genuine? Keith hated that he couldn’t tell anymore. Back on Central Command, he’d wrote it all off as games. At the Palace, he’d thought it trickery until Zarkon started touching him. He struggled to find the words for the change.

Zarkon flirted and tricked and killed as his plan needed. Keith didn’t know the ultimate plan-- only fragments of it-- but there’d been no need to hold him close at the fire. There’d been no gain to making a scene of removing his hair tie. He’d distracted Keith through one touch. What was the point of more? 

Which brought him to a single conclusion: Zarkon was playing with him. Zarkon derived some pleasure from teasing him. The flirting was part of that. Keith dug his claws into his forearms. The flirting didn’t come from a desire for a torrid romance, but Zarkon enjoyed, on some level, Keith’s company. Maybe because Zarkon hadn’t spoken to someone who understood Voltron and the Lions in over ten thousand years. 

He stared at the wall. He felt like combusting in frustration. Zarkon didn’t want to give him all the details of the Galra, at least for now. Instead, he’d likely return to his playful flirting that Keith didn’t know how to react to. Even if Zarkon had been a normal human, Keith would have shied away. 

Where did this leave him? “Prince?” the servant called out again.

He opened his mouth, unsure of what would come out. “I’m afraid I’m quite tired,” he said back. “Give the Emperor my regards, but I should be going to bed.”

He wasn’t going to do it. He’d break Hyladra’s heart-- Hyladra, who kept sending tendrils of curiosity over their bond. The little energy that wasn’t devoted to his sirocco of emotions went to fortifying a wall between them. He owed her for agreeing to the bond. She’d cared for him, treated him kindly, and had risked her own position for Keith’s poor decisions. And here he was, cutting her off from himself like a healthy branch from a withered tree.

The branch could be replanted, whispered a traitorous voice. If he protected her from what he did, it would all be fine. The lie tasted bitter. He choked it down, though, and stood. He roamed his small room, searching for a weapon. If Marmora proved to be a Clarion, he’d need to be able to defend himself. If he backed out of the meeting, Keith would need some defense on Vrikka’s streets. Nobody had told him about the city: for all he knew, it had crime problems, though he struggled to believe that Zarkon wouldn’t raze the city to the ground to purge it of such problems.

He found two things: a long, varnished stick that could be used to pummel someone, and a pair of scissors, different from human ones only in how it accommodated larger Galran hands and claws. Did Galra use walking sticks in the city? He thought back to the party. Nobody had used them. Even the few older Galra-- of which there’d been very few-- preferred to steady themselves on servants or sit in chairs. 

Was he seriously going to meet a Clarion with a pair of scissors? Only a  _ potential _ Clarion, sure, but it qualified as one of his dumbest decisions yet. More searching produced nothing-- not even a knife. The frustration built in his mind. Hyladra hovered at the edge of his conscious. She didn’t push, but she kept giving the bond light taps, insistent to the end. What did he tell her? How did he hide what was going to do? The answer that came to him didn’t help his apprehension.

He’d be sleeping and dreaming. Not in reality, but Hyladra would think it. He reached out to her as he walked to the door. She met him on the other side; he unlocked the door, and leaned through the crack. “I’m going to bed,” Keith said. “I just… need some time to process what happened.” He tugged a lock of loose hair.

Hyladra’s confused gaze turned knowing. “I’ll keep them away,” she promised. “Knock if you need something.” She paused. “You know how to turn on the bed’s hearth?”

“I do,” Keith lied. When he closed the door, he spent the next ten minutes figuring out how to turn it on. The flames were contained, so he didn’t fear leaving it unattended

For now, he picked up his scissors, wrapped them in a scarf, and tucked them into his belt. His clothes were loose and gentle against his oiled fur. He smelled of flowers and thunderstorms: it was a scent he could learn to love, and that frightened him. Maybe that, he mused, was why he wanted to escape the Palace. 

The balcony hung above the parking lot, several floors high. It was separate from the other balcony he’d been working on: an outcropping from the wall hid him from view as he leaned over the railing, trying to see any footholds. A straight jump would end in death. 

Other people’s balconies were situated in a diagonal line, so that each would have the ability to see the sun or feel the rain. Each wall of the Palace had enough room for four separate diagonal rows. He could, with some delicate footwork, work his way down the row on his section of the building. The problem was that he didn’t know who was out or by their balcony door until he was close enough for them to see him. Weaving a rope from sheets and scarves offered a tempting possibility, but someone would inevitably see the dangling rope if he made it too long. He could control his jumping better than he could a swinging pseudo-rope. 

He squinted down at the balconies. Only one was visibly occupied: Zarkon’s dinner had taken most Galra away from their apartments, and it looked like the only remnant of the occupants was an older man and his husband who curled together on a couch. Food surrounded them. He’d need to slip past them-- their tangled forms promised sleep, or at least dozing, but he wouldn’t know until it was too late. 

The first jump strained his ankles. The high lips of the balcony’s sides saved him from a fall on the second leap. Down, down, down he went. Some of the bedrooms had lights and servants, but none of them looked out. Most were dark as their occupants collected their dinners. When he reached the lip above the couple’s balcony, he crouched there and scrutinized them. One of them had a tail which swished back and forth, bushy as a feather duster. It revealed they were dozing, though. He adjusted his shoes and almost dumped his robe: if it fluttered too loudly or flicked against one of the Galra, he’d get their attention. 

He took in a deep, quiet breath. He didn’t pray, nor did he whisper encouragement to himself. His tendons tensed and his muscles burned as he leapt down to the balcony. 

He landed on the balcony’s edge, his shoes scraping against the stone. He didn’t stop: he hustled across before the man had time to look up. Down, to the next balcony, he kept moving. The shadows swallowed him. When he looked back, he saw the men standing, looking about to see what strange thing had disturbed them. 

“You think it was a bird?” one of them asked.

The other shrugged. “What else would it be? Be glad it didn’t deign to shit on us.” The man sighed. “Let’s head inside before it comes back. We’ll have the servants check for nests along the bottom.”

When his feet touched ground, he couldn’t resist a sigh of relief. He hadn’t fallen. No bones were broken. Guards wouldn’t find him laid out on the ground, dead or unconscious. All he needed to do now was find a way out from the gates, wander into the town, and find the blue river with the coiled tower.

He slunk around the parking lot’s edge. A tall, goldenl fence surrounded the large stone lot. The enclosure took up the half of the Palace’s side. Packed with cars, the further Keith went in, the more reality seemed to bend. Was he on Gal, by the Palace, or was he at an Earth hospital? Either were possible. A guard station protected the only legitimate exit from the Palace parking lot. At this time of night, it was understaffed from what Keith saw. The metal cage the guards rested in flickered. Keith swore he could see the dark, cosmic colour for a second before it faded. 

By the thorny bushes, between trees that made him think of figs and dates, some creature had dug a shallow hole so that it could visit the Palace when it pleased. The claw marks were deep, but it hadn’t bothered to expend much energy. It had to be flat, almost like a bru. Or maybe it  _ was _ a bru. Though to be fair, bru and gheron were the only two Galran animals he knew.

He spent time digging the hole deeper. Without close inspection, guards were unlikely to find it among the brush. It’d give him a way to travel in and out of the Palace, though it’d have to be at night, and rarely. The two men thinking they’d been disturbed by a bird was a blessing he doubted he’d get again.  

The thought tempted him, but he couldn’t leave Gal yet. Not without Red or the Holts, and not without knowing what would happen to Hyladra. But he could explore Gal in the interim. He crawled out from under the fences, slunk around the bushes, and slipped on to stone streets. Nobody milled around on them: the few cars that traversed the street were large, boxy, and a purple-black. 

Keith kept to shadows. When forced to cross streets, he hurried to alleys and dark corners. The further he got from the Palace, the more life appeared in the streets. Pubs in white stone buildings, tall towers made from metal, and glass bulbs the size of warehouses sat beside each other, no rhyme or reason to their order. 

Vrikka had, in some ways, missed Zarkon’s memo on order. The people who lived in it didn’t seem to care: Galra roamed in groups, young and largely drunk. Some Galra, those that looked older, sat at side-street cafes. 

Keith didn’t stand out. Shockingly, Palace attire didn’t stray too far from street fashion. It made sense: Zarkon seemed to enjoy luxury, but there was luxury and then there was waste. Galra weren’t the type for waste. The harsh desert sun had scorched itself into the Galran psyche. 

The two moons hung low in the sky. The were reddish-purple, larger than Earth’s moon, and were framed by thousands of stars. Vrikka, despite its population exceeding New York City’s, had none of the light or sound pollution. Vrikka asserted its presence quietly. Its inhabitants were exuberant; the buildings, understated. Even the metal border-line skyscrapers faded against the moons’ skyline. 

The bars and cafes played harp music and the sharp notes of a piano-like instrument. People dined on food in the open air; alcohol was passed around, even to those who were young. The Galran families were big, Keith noticed, though they lacked people who looked like grandparents or other older relatives. How did the Galra age? He only knew Zarkon, whose age had been frozen in time long ago. A Galra child waved at him from her chair, a glass of something pale and milky in hand. Fermented gheron milk, Keith thought, with the same round berries he’d had back at Central Command with Kymin. Keith tried to reconcile that with the round, chubby face of the Galran child. Galra had to metabolize alcohol differently. Keith hadn’t had any since he’d become a Galra, so he couldn’t say for certain, but Keith thought enough of Galran logic that they wouldn’t get their children drunk or buzzed.

Laundry hung from balcony railings, and in the more residential areas, clotheslines stretched across the small gaps between buildings’ faces. Galra relaxed in the moonlight, their glowing gold eyes unsettling yet mesmerizing. They laughed and smoked and drank and gossiped. He walked past a pair of Galra tangled in each other’s arms. The woman hummed to herself as the man buried his face into her neck. 

Keith didn’t feel tired. Despite spending the day on his feet, the moonlight soothed any soreness and exhaustion. The Galra were nocturnal animals, he thought. He hadn’t been able to tell on Central Command, but he knew now that they were meant to nap and doze during the day-- except for services-- and hunt, talk, and gather at night. 

Street musicians lined the riverside. Bushy trees had lanterns hanging from their branches; glowing insects lazily bobbed around the lanterns, and some rested on the blankets of picnicking Galra. The river’s water trickled down to the sea. Sailing ships covered the placid water surface. Some were just big enough for a small family. Others were dinner cruises with bright lights illuminating their decks and displays.

Keith sat on a bench near a quartet of drummers and string instrument musicians. Coins clinked into their pro-offered hats and instrument cases. Fresh, cool air tugged at Keith’s clothes. He looked out at the river. Children scampered along the shore, though few dared to dip into the water. A man sat beside his wife as he groomed her long white hair into a complex, twisting braid. 

Everyone was young. Everyone looked content. It struck Keith as the most relaxing sight he’d ever held and the most unsettling. Where were the old lovers taking in the scene? Where were the old men smoking on their balconies, or the old women feeding the skinny birds at the shore? Even at the cafe-- the most egalitarian thing in the Empire, considering the myriad of people he’d walked by-- he’d never seen an elderly person. 

He looked to the sky. The skyscrapers weren’t true skyscrapers: they didn’t touch the clouds. Toronto had a higher skyline. While the Vrikkan buildings were tall and stuck out in a relatively flat city, they didn’t block the view of the moons, stars, and clouds. Flocks of birds wove above everyone’s heads, catching the glowing insects. They moved like starlings across sky. 

The square by the river had a large clock, though its numbering looked far different than anything Keith had seen on Earth. It chimed in low, bassoon tones. Keith counted out the strikes. It was only twelve, but he knew he needed to find the coiled tower soon. The river’s shore stretched for miles upon miles, and every inch had to be inspected.

He eyed a nearby couple stargazing through a telescope. Asking presented itself as an option, but how strange would he sound talking about a coiled tower? Agonizing embarrassment pinned him to the bench. Only the cold realization that he’d done worse propelled him to the couple. He would look stupid, but it wouldn’t be the first time.

The man noticed Keith first. His expression didn’t change from an open smile. The man nodded at Keith. “How does life treat you tonight?” the man asked.

Keith forced a smile of his own. “Very well,” he lied. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but I’m looking for an, uh, coiled tower.” The woman looked up and raised a brow. “I’d be more specific, but I come from the colonies. A friend told me to see the architecture. She didn’t have the place’s name, though.”

“Well,” the man said, “you chose the right person to ask! You can thank the Voice for that luck.” The woman laughed, her eyes rolling in a tease. The man grinned at her. “You’re looking for the Peace Tower.” The man pointed at a distant tower, his smile still bright. “Just cross the river and head northwest. It’s free to get in this month: the Emperor wants us to see the history of the Empire’s ties to other species.”

Keith suspected the displays would edit out the exploitation, death, and misery of said ties. Yet when he thought it, a lingering sense of unease followed: the Galra meant well, at least those who weren’t xenophobes or like Sendak. Most of the Galra he’d met took a sunny view of the Empire, and believed that by following Zarkon, they were contributing to something bigger than themselves. 

It was like how Keith had felt at the Garrison. The place hadn’t been perfect, and the high-ranking soldiers were involved in questionable things, as demonstrated by how they treated Shiro’s disappearance and return, but Keith had found a place where he belonged in his time at the Garrison. He could tear the Galra apart for the actions of a select group, but wouldn’t Keith carry blame for the Garrison’s sins? For how it treated Pidge and her mother, for how it’d treated Shiro, for how it’d treated students who didn’t excel as it demanded.

As he walked along the waterfront, hunting for a bridge, memories of the Garrison haunted him. The Garrison demanded a battery of tests before it offered admission. Mental, physical, and emotional trials were placed in front of every applicant. To get in, you needed more than skill. You needed  _ talent _ . Thousands of other newly minted adults competed for a hundred positions. There were stories of subterfuge for every admission cycle. The year Keith had applied, a girl had broken a boy’s leg by sabotaging his space suit. When the Garrison found out, the girl had been axed from all applications. The boy had been sent home, and Keith had never heard of him since.

Keith’s story was less interesting. He’d attended a public school throughout high school. By grade ten, people began to ask, with increasing frequency, what he planned on doing in life. Keith didn’t have an answer until he turned sixteen. A teacher had dedicated a class to the ‘unknowns of space’, he’d called it. The legal issues, the exploration, what lay beyond what Earth’s telescopes could see, and the foundations of the universe had been covered.

It hadn’t been a lightning bolt moment. Keith had thought it interesting and then returned to his books and racing. From the books, he built a straight-A educational career. In the racing-- rented hovercycles on confined tracks when he turned 16, arcade simulators, and the like-- he learned how fast his reflexes were. 

“You’re more than good at this,” someone told him once. “You were  _ born _ for it.”

Racing hovercycles had two faces: the illegal, more lucrative side, and the legal but largely poor-paying one. Neither were good to make a career on, no matter how much he enjoyed it. In grade ten, he directed his energies toward becoming a journalist. The guidance counsellor called it a reasonable goal. “Everyone wants to be an astronaut,” the woman had said, “or a movie star. You’ll find life is better where you’re going.”

The Garrison actively recruited all around the world. They visited science fairs, symposiums, and-- it turned out-- hovercycle racetracks. Keith had gone to the racetrack to find a pair of men watching racers. He hadn’t thought much of it: they weren’t in uniform, and spectators weren’t rare. He’d hopped on a hovercycle and torn through the course. Then he parked by the unused cycles and waited for someone to come make a wager. Instead, the Garrison recruiters came to him.

Their pitch had been simple: Keith had talent, and the Garrison lived on talent. “Piloting’s about instinct,” one of the men told him. “The way you were moving, I’d think you set up the course. But the owner told us it’s random every day.”

Keith ignored the praise. “What does the Garrison have,” he asked, “to make applying to it worth the trouble?” Even as a sixteen year old, he knew the horror stories of Garrison applications.

The man who’d swooned about instinct gaped at Keith. The other man, though, grinned, as though he’d been waiting for that. “Money,” the other man said. “Prestige. You join the Garrison, and you’re an elite pilot who’ll go places others have only dreamed about. You’ll be surrounded by the best of the best, and you’ll never have to hold back.”

It’d been the last point that’d sold him on the Garrison. He’d told anyone who asked about a love of space and piloting, given to him by that teacher’s presentation, but the idea of never having to hold back had won him over. Surrounded by people with preternatural talent, he wouldn’t be the oddest person in the room. He could just  _ exist _ , and nobody would have snide commentary about it.

Of course, it’d turned out to be a damned lie. He’d spent the next two years preparing for the tests. He learned advanced physics. He paid a university student to teach him astrobiology. He endured snide remarks as he signed on for more and more extracurriculars: Everything from chess club, to mathletes, to sports. His high school was poorly funded and public, but it had at least a of couple people in each club, enough to exist yet rarelyt enough to actually do anything. 

The Garrison’s tests started in January of grade twelve. The first quizzed people on general knowledge-- legal decisions, basic language skills, comprehension, and abstract thinking. The Garrison held the tests at centres throughout the world. Toronto’s testing took place in a large stadium. People lined up for days to purchase a seat. Keith was second in line. He’d scored in the 95th percentile. It barely got him to the next round. 

He excelled in the next one, though. Basic physical tests were administered in major outposts of the Garrison: Keith’s took place in Chicago. Three days passed in a gruelling marathon of running, jumping, crawling, and swimming. “You just need to make it through,” someone had said online. “They want pilots to be able to take every shitty thing and keep going.”

Scientists, engineers, and the like were spared the endurance test. Keith knew, though, that they were being bombarded with tests for their disciplines. Someone like Hunk would have been ordered to build an advanced engine from scratch. Pidge would have cobbled together a computer program to fulfill complex tasks. Keith and Lance, though, drudged along with heavy packs through woods and over hills. Then, the day the physical tests ended, the potential pilots were thrown into simulators. 

Keith had shone in the physical tests. Years of martial arts, work, and general physical activity put him in good condition. Determination dragged him through the muddy lanes, and spite at goading test administrators kept exhaustion at bay. When he entered the simulator, sleep tried to claw its way free from the steely cage he’d locked it in. It tore at the thirty minute lesson he’d had in the auditorium about what the buttons did, how ship trajectories worked, and how not to crash his sim in the first three minutes. 

He’d breathed deep, placed his hands on the controls, and dove into the simulation.

They’d retested his results three times before they offered a spot. At the time, Keith had thought he’d performed just barely well enough to get in. Later, at the final test, one of the administrators had admitted the truth. “The last time we got results like these,” she said, “he graduated the Garrison in two years.” She shook her head. “We thought you were cheating. We usually find the talent before it finds us.”

They’d found him, in a way, at the racetrack, even if it was in passing. Who would talent search at a dumpy orphanage in Toronto for the next star pilot, though? The last one had been from Fukuoka, with ties to the military, a sterling career in the sciences, and a family willing to shell out the cash for science camps and symposiums. Takashi Shirogane had been aiming for the Garrison since he was five. Keith almost felt unworthy when he discovered who his scores had been compared to. Shiro had been excited, though. To him, it meant that they were destined to pilot ships together.  _ A pilot always needs a co-pilot _ , he’d said once as they played video games. 

The sour side to Keith had noted that Shiro was the only person at the Garrison to say that to him. Most resented his presence: he hurt the grading curve, an engineering student joked once. Those outside the piloting program watched in bemusement as Keith struggled to find people to work with him in the program. Engineers and scientists at the Garrison didn’t adore him, but they didn’t flee from his presence or descend into quiet murmurs when he walked past.

When he thought back, he could remember Lance. There’d been snide remarks and sneers from the other man. Keith didn’t know Lance’s story. Maybe he’d scraped into the program and had insecurities about it. Maybe he thought that Keith had a silver-spoon upbringing, or that he’d known Shiro before joining the program, and that got him in. All he knew was Lance’s crushed look when Shiro would talk to Keith, and the biting comments that came when Shiro left. 

The Garrison hadn’t been a place to let go. Showing off talent in the pilot program invited scorn. The instructors loved it-- Iverson had praised him numerous times-- but other students worked to tear each other down. Another pair of students had got into a war of sabotage until they were both booted from the program. One student, a bright woman with pink hair and a bubblegum-snapping attitude had her dorm room destroyed when she came in second place at the end-of-term exams. Keith had escaped the treatment through adding a second lock to his door at the start of the exams, suspecting something might happen to his room. 

The other programs had never had the kinds of problems piloting did. There’d been gossip about it. Some said it was because pilots had no other talents to fall back on-- cruel and untrue, in Keith’s opinion. He thought it more that piloting attracted aggressive personalities. Directing billions of dollars in technology around in something that could kill in seconds demanded an ability to push the limits and trust in your decisions. To have someone then turn around and tell you that what you did wasn’t good enough, wasn’t the best thing they’d ever seen, had to sting.

Keith never got that in piloting. He got it in other things, though. He hadn’t been born knowing how to fight, and it’d taken months for him to properly grasp the fundamentals of calculus. He knew the frustration other people felt, but their frustration crystallized when they looked at the scores of the top five pilots. Those top pilots were the fighter pilots, and those were the ones who’d lead headline-making missions. 

Two things had kept him going when the recruiter’s claim proved a lie. First, he’d come so far already, and he was so  _ good _ at piloting. He was free when he sat in front of the controls. The twists and turns and buttons and levers caused others to freeze. Yet Keith always knew what came next. To give up and return to Toronto to muddle his way through a college degree seemed a waste after all he’d discovered he could do. He could pilot the most advanced technology his people had in the most intense scenarios, beside brilliant, visionary scientists and engineers. To go get a degree in journalism after that would mean discarding his big talents and accomplishments.

And then there was Shiro. Even the man’s name made his heart fluttery. Keith forced his face to be neutral as he wove between white stone buildings. Their square windows revealed people working away in offices or hanging out with friends. Life for the Galra never stopped. The coiled tower was only a few blocks away now.

Thinking about Shiro on Gal posed a risk. It made him ache to return to the Paladins, even as guilt followed-- both at his attachments to the Galra, and because he felt like he betrayed those Galra he cared about. But Shiro had been one of his ties to the Garrison. With Shiro, there’d been a purpose only a few years away: together, they’d explore space, expanding the frontiers of human knowledge and seeing places nobody had seen before. Kerberos had been a stepping stone for that. When the mission finished, Shiro’s star would skyrocket, and with his new pull, he could take a newly graduated Keith under his command. And then…

What? They’d have become lovers? Something deep inside Keith deflated. He’d never pretend he didn’t have feelings for Shiro. The man was beautiful, had the talent of twenty officers, and looked at Keith like he found something new to admire every time. Shiro wanted, at his core, to help and protect everyone he met, and he did it with genius and usual good humour. 

Shiro seemed less sure of himself now. Keith understood why: he’d gone through a fraction of what Shiro had, and he had more doubts about who he was than ever before. It didn’t make Shiro evil or tainted, though. It had shrouded the light in Shiro’s soul, but the light could burn through. 

He wished, as he entered the lobby of a Galran museum, he’d told Shiro that. Not that the man would have believed Keith. Shiro would have smiled, nodded, and withdrawn to his burning self-hate. Leaving Keith, once again, to find a way to break through the barrier and convince Shiro that talking wouldn’t hurt the people around him.

There were other Galra in the museum. None of them paid Keith mind as he slipped into the elevator and pushed the button for the highest floor. The elevator slid effortlessly upward. At the top, Marmora waited for him. He’d taken a risk coming, and all he had was a pair of scissors. Shiro would have understood, though. Not the scissors, but why he took the risk. Shiro wanted to help just as much as Keith did. He wouldn’t approve of Keith’s methods, Keith knew that deep down, but Keith could imagine the sad understanding in Shiro’s dark eyes, and the heavy hand that would rest on Keith’s shoulder.

That scene would never come. Because all Shiro would see was another Galra until Keith returned to his true form. Marmora might be another route to that: they offered information outside the constraints Zarkon put on it in his domain. If they were a rebel, not Clarion or a loyal officer, Keith could use their help.

When the elevator opened, the moons seemed to have swallowed the sky. Their brilliant red-purple made the white buildings below look like they were in a painting. The coiled tower’s top was flat: in the centre, someone stood. They wore dark robes, a blade at their side, and a most curious thing: a mask with three glowing eyes, and two stripes on each side. 

“I’ve been waiting,” Marmora said, just as the a distant clock began to chime out thirteen notes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update's on the 28th (Atlantic)! In the meantime, find me at the-wenzel.tumblr.com. :3


	5. Chapter 5

“I’m on time,” Keith said and shrugged. The scissors at his side felt woefully inadequate compared to Marmora’s blade. Without a genuine weapon, he kept his distance. He took a few steps away from the door to fend off any accusations of paranoia, but he could still leap back and bolt down to the elevator. Would it be faster than Mamora’s chase? He didn’t know, but he hoped it would be. 

Mamora laughed, the voice sharp and mechanical. “You are,” they agreed. “I would introduce myself in detail, but that would require me to show you unearned trust.”

Keith nodded slowly. “Fair enough,” he said. “You’re Marmora. I’m Caith. You said you could give me answers.”

“I did.” Marmora prowled forward. Keith forced himself not to backpedal. This close, Keith could hear the hiss of Marmora’s mask’s breathing filter. “You’ve spent your day being charmed. Tell me, what have you seen of the Gal? Of its people and their lives?”

“Luxury,” Keith said. What would Caith think of everything that’d happened? He chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment before speaking. “An obsession with disdaining said luxury despite partaking in it. Devotion to the Emperor, a strange quiet to Gal’s daily life, and--” He stopped speaking. Did he want to say it? “Are you a Clarion?” he asked instead. 

Marmora shook their head. “The Clarion are short-sighted obsessives. They live and breathe the Voice, a force that cares nothing for them except for their quintessence. If they chased the sun, I’d understand it more. You fear that I’m here to lead you astray, or perhaps kill you for being an example of the Voice’s spread to old enemies. I will tell you that the Clarion have been shattered.”

“Oh?” Keith said. His heart pounded in his chest. “What happened?”

“A spy in their ranks unleashed ruin on them.” Marmora cocked their head to the side. “They’d planned to kill Emperor Zarkon: most of their best operatives had been shifted to Central Command. When the spy turned, they took out every single Galra who’d moved against Zarkon. Now, those on Gal have gone into hiding, while those agents who survived the initial capture fear for their lives as the Sorrowsingers purge the station.”

Keith blinked, as though he was taking in something incredible. “How do you know this?” he demanded. “How many of the Clarion are left?”

“On Central Command? A dozen. On Gal? A few thousand. In the colonies, there are far more, but their positions are precarious. Communications will lead a trail back to them. Their ranks won’t provide protection either: there are stories of even the most loyal Yexin being interrogated.” Marmora mirrored Keith’s earlier shrug. “I know this from the eyes and ears of the true rebellion against Zarkon.”

Keith shivered. “True rebellion?” he asked, though his mind lingered on the story of a loyal Yexin being targeted. It couldn’t be Kymin. There were many other Yexin aboard Central Command, after all. “What makes you so different from the Clarion?”

Marmora kept their arms to their sides. They didn’t laugh or tease. “We want to remove not just Zarkon, but the Voice itself.”

“You know who I am.” Keith tried not to shake in relief. There were true rebels. There were Galra who looked at the Empire and saw it as rotten. “Why do you think I’d support destroying the Voice when I worship her?”

“Tepid worship,” Marmora said. “The worship of a child, one who doesn’t know better or what the Voice has done to the Galra. Tell me again, Caith. What have you noticed? Other than the luxury and duty.”

“Everyone’s young.” Keith almost regretted the words. “Nobody is truly old. I see no grandparents in families. No elderly lovers, or old people talking at cafes.” He didn’t know how Galra aged to truly describe it. Was he noticing a feature of the Galran race, or was there something strange about Gal? “It’s like those on Gal immediately die when their children become adults.”

Marmora didn’t reply. Keith wondered if he’d blown his cover. But then Marmora nodded. “You are not ignorant, then. You are not the first foreign Galra to come to Gal, but you are the first I met who noticed the problem. Gal is barren of the old because it kills its elderly-- not through poison or metal, but through worship.”

Keith almost echoed the word worship. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve experienced services,” Marmora said. “You’ve felt the quintessence drain from you. The Druids shepherd you into a room to recover, for the Voice has exchanged quintessence and you must assimilate it properly. Do you believe them?”

Keith’s entire body was taut, like a wire. “I did,” Keith admitted. “But they’re lying, then, according to you. Does the Voice not give quintessence back?” How much quintessence had Keith lost attending the temple’s services? What about as a temple-tender, or even the times the Voice had grabbed him as a human?

“The Voice cares little for her worshippers,” Marmora said instead. “For her to reciprocate the transfer would mean she would have to realize we are dying, and for her to realize that she kills the herd of gheron she feeds on. She has no ability to understand that. She hungers, so she feeds; her people die, but they breed new gheron for the herd, so she never finds her power withered.”

“And those who can’t give more quintessence--?”

“Die in their sleep,” Marmora said, “or at services. When you are drained of your quintessence, your body has to recover on its own. The surge of adrenaline you feel… that is not the Voice’s quintessence. That is your body hovering on the precipice of death.”

Wow. “Uh,” he said. How many years of his life had he lost? What about someone like Thace, who’d been going to services for decades? “The Druids, they know about this?”

“They know about it,” Marmora said dryly, “and they live off the gifted quintessence. While they can manipulate their own quintessence, for their greatest works, they need the Voice’s stolen gift.”

Volux knew. They knew, and they let it happen. They’d even dragged Keith into it. There was a bigger problem, though. “Zar--the Emperor knows about it.”

“The Emperor, the Druids, high-ranking officers, ministers, and anyone who’s doubted the Voice knows.” Marmora didn’t sound tired or angry. They spoke like these were facts that were unsurprising and of no consequence. “It is the great secret of Gal.”

Keith forced down panic. “Why? What’s the point in feeding the Voice with the lives of Galra? It can’t just be for worship.”

“We don’t know,” Marmora said. “The Druids do it for power and for the Voice, the ministers do it to maintain the Empire, and the high-ranking officers say nothing about it among themselves. Why the Emperor has done this, we don’t know. But it is the truth of this land. It has happened so long, that we on Gal do not know how long we are truly meant to live.”

What did he even say to that? Not even the Galra were safe from the Empire’s cruelty. Keith’s hands turned to fists at his sides. “How do you know this?”

“Stolen communications,” Marmora said, “intensive investigation, and research of old records. A Galra can live for centuries, according to older documentation. Scholars dismiss it as legend. They think we always lived for fifty years and little more.”

Keith’s nails dug into his palms. He breathed deep and spoke. “Does the Empire encourage large families?”

Marmora cocked their head to the side. “...It does. Through money and cultural distortion. A good Galra will have as large a family as possible. Records from before Zarkon’s time show that we bred rarely, preferring to raise a single child at a time. But the Voice hungers, and larger families mean more worshippers.”

Marmora could be lying. It wasn’t like Keith could go back to Zarkon and demand an answer on the accusations. “There’s a price for this information, isn’t there?” He didn’t want to think about the children being fed to the Voice. She was a parasite, and Zarkon had cultivated her presence for millennia. But why? Zarkon wouldn’t murder his own people without reason. 

“Take that as free,” Marmora said. “I offer you a deal for future information, however. My organization works to destroy the Empire from within. To do that, we require information on troop movements, supply shipments, and intelligence gathered by Zarkon’s own forces. Such information can be gathered by our own agents, for the most part.” Marmora’s voice lightened, as though amused. “But there are places we cannot reach.”

“You want me to steal something.” More espionage work, this time for someone he knew even less about. He breathed deep and released a sigh. “What are you after, and don’t take that as agreement.”

“Of course,” Marmora said. “My organization wishes to obtain a log of shipments from Gej-B10. Unfortunately, such logs are difficult to obtain, resting on Zarkon’s desk at the moment. Like all paper copies, he will burn them in the coming days, and the traces within electronic systems will be deleted as our computer experts fruitlessly try to slip into the databases.”

Marmora had computer experts. It shouldn’t have surprised him, but it did. Marmora either lied or their organization had money and power behind it. Understandable, he thought, with Zarkon killing the Galra. The lingering question of why Zarkon would do it haunted him. 

“This is because of the rain-watching party, isn’t it?” Keith’s temples ached. “You think I can get close to him because he… likes me.”

“Likes it a mild word,” Marmora said. “The last Galra he fawned over like he does you died wealthy beyond imagining. She was titled, gifted land, and had a guard of a hundred soldiers.”

She still died, Keith thought, though he didn’t have the bravery to say it. “How long ago did she live?”

“Nine thousand years ago,” Marmora answered. “He hasn’t had a lover since. Yet he plays with your hair, holds you close, and desires your presence. Whatever you did when you first met him, Prince Caith, you made a striking impression.”

I’m the Red Paladin, Keith thought. Of course Zarkon would notice him. Marmora didn’t know that, though-- or at least Keith hoped they didn’t. Keith didn’t know for certain, but he suspected it’d make their relationship far more  _ complicated _ if Marmora had an inkling that Keith wasn’t Caith. 

“It was less dramatic than you’d think,” Keith lied, as though him and Zarkon engaging in combat had been anything but explosively dramatic. “What answers will you give for the documents? And what shipment are you after?”

“Nothing you’ve earned my trust to know yet,” Marmora said. “If you want to know the shipments, you can read the documents yourself. But for information…” They came close, their movements too similar to a spider’s for comfort. “I will tell you what the rank songs are. I’ll give you secrets about the Druids. Or maybe-- with your concern about them-- I could offer the history of the Clarion, and what their actions are now.”

All tempting information. There was something more important, though. “Can you tell me about the movements of Voltron?”

Marmora’s head tilted to the side. “...I could. I’m unsure why you would be interested.”

“In a legend returned to life?” Keith said. “In a threat that attacked Central Command, and which has the Emperor’s history tied up in it? Or are you saying you don’t have the capability to track Voltron.”

Marmora paused. “You fear them.”

“No,” Keith said. “They concern me. As they should every other Galra.”

“You still have faith in the Empire,” Marmora murmured. “Even after I’ve told you what it does.”

Keith shook his head. “The Empire is sick. The Voice is… worse. But I need to know more before I decide it needs to be destroyed.” What would happen in a power vacuum? Would Marmora sweep in and take over? How did they feel about Voltron or reparations to the societies Zarkon had decimated? Would they, in the long run, actually help? “How do I know which documents to take?”

“It will be marked in the silhouette of a kralick.” 

What the fuck was a kralick? He tried to keep the panic from his face. He bowed his head. Could he ask without raising suspicion? “Then I suppose I should return to the Palace. I’ll need to charm the Emperor to get into his office, won’t I?” 

Marmora shrugged. “How you get the documents is up to your discretion. I only ask that, when you have the documents, you wear a green ribbon. It will be unusual enough that we will hear of it.”

Comforting. “I’ll return to my rooms and keep that in mind.”

Marmora laughed softly. “And how will you do that?”

Keith paused. “What do you mean? I’ll go back to the Palace and--” His mind blanked. _ How was he going to get back up to his room? _ He’d leapt down from balcony to balcony, almost falling at points. How was he going to climb back up them? His expression fell. Would he have to ask Hyladra to help him? Could he sneak into his room? Unlikely with Hyladra guarding the door and the Palace’s general security. He sucked at spy work more than even he’d realized. “...You know my situation, then.”

“Our agents watched your desperate escape,” Marmora said. “One thought you knew how to get back up. The other assumed you were a fool.” Marmora sighed. “I could leave you, of course. But then you’d have to inform others on what transpired, or at least give them an idea that something just might be  _ wrong _ .”

“How are you going to help?” It pained him to ask. He already felt like he’d failed. Drowning in that feeling, though, would alarm Hyladra and solve nothing. “Unless you have a grappling hook or some way to fly, we’re not going to get back up there unnoticed.”

Marmora reached out and patted him on the shoulder. “A simple flying disk,” Marmora said. “We’ll have to be quick-- the shields do not hold up for long-- but I can deposit you back to your balcony.”

“And after?” Keith asked. “If I’m going to deliver the documents, I’m going to need a better way to get in and out of the Palace.” He felt like he was fourteen again, asking for keys to supply closets and side-doors. 

Marmora pulled away, intent on the far east corner of the roof. “Now that we have an idea that you won’t be fleeing to Zarkon about this,” they said, “our agents can speak to you on a closer basis.” They looked over their shoulder. Even with the mask, Keith could feel the raised eyebrow. “If you turn on us, Prince Caith, we will not forget it.”

That turned his stomach, but he’d signed on already. He nodded as he followed. “I want to stop people from dying,” he said. 

Marmora shook their head. “Then our path might not be what you’re hoping for.” 

“Maybe not,” Keith admitted. “But it’s better than standing by as people die.”

Marmora had a small disk hidden in the shadows. It made sense for a spy: by flying at night, cameras missed them and people were unlikely to see their features. Keith didn’t know how common the disks were, though he hadn’t seen any on his walk through Vrikka. Marmora seemed to believe them safe: they stood behind Keith, steadying him as the disk whirred to life. It sounded similar to the quiet buzz of a fan as it lifted from the ground. 

“It has shields?” Keith asked as they drifted from the roof, high onto the streets. Keith braced himself as it picked up speed to a zipping pace. In answer to his question, something crackled in the disk and the world blurred, as though gauze had layered over his vision.

“Not a sound,” Marmora whispered over the disk’s whirs and Vrikka’s gentle murmur. They soared over the river; when Keith looked down, they didn’t even leave a shadow. “When you see the gates, hold your breath.”

It was an odd command, but Keith braced himself as they twisted and turned through Vrikka’s streets. Marmora used a different route than the one Keith had taken. Marmora zeroed in on the Palace, as though speed was of the essence. The shields held, but the crackle by Keith’s feet warned of their growing strain. 

The sight of the Palace in the moonlight, all reddish purple and gleaming, left him marvelling. It dominated Vrikka in size and sight. Eerily beautiful at night, its salt walls looked like more than fire in the night. They looked like portals to other worlds, little doorways chiselled into the mass of white.

He held his breath as they crossed above the golden gate. Over the guards, over the cars lined up waiting for entrance to the Palace, and toward his balcony, which Keith found mildly disturbing that Marmora knew exactly which one it was, but mostly he felt relief as he hopped off the disk. The moment his head passed the barrier, he couldn’t see Marmora or the disk.

Dressed in dirt-stained clothes, he hobbled into his warm room and breathed a deep, heartfelt sigh. He needed to go find Zarkon and talk his way into getting his hands on the documents. He also needed to find out what a kralick was before then. He knew two things, though: one, Zarkon would invite him to dine again. Two, Hyladra probably knew what a kralick was, and she’d most definitely answer.

He rubbed his temples as he began to dispose of his clothes. They were stained from his venture, which made them evidence. Burning them would be worse, but the bathroom in his room had a shallow sink that he knew would cause a mess in the process of washing the clothes. Still, he didn’t have much of a choice.

They’d dry fast in the sun, he thought, desperate to console himself. It might cause significant gossip if he laid them out to dry like that, though. He frowned down at the clothes as he stuffed his pants into the sink. The water came out luxuriously cold. He could place the wet clothes over the glass cover on the hearth’s fire, but would that be effective? It wouldn’t be big enough to do it all at once. There wasn’t a shower curtain rod either in the bathroom. Just a dust bath, a sink, a toilet, and a comfortable looking sofa.

He couldn’t let the clothes soak. With the amount of white cloth there was, the dirt would turn to mud and seep through the unstained parts. He had to spot clean with help from the cleansing soap Galra used for their hands. It was moisturizing, gentle, and peeled away oil and dirt. It didn’t help too much with the stains from the bushes’ leaves, but the earthy stains on his pants and shirt washed away. 

His jaw cracked as he yawned. Taking the clothes, he layered them over the hearth’s glass. He braced for a the snap of water quickly evaporating, but nothing happened. His shoulders slumped in relief. He’d have to wake up before the servants came, but he’d effectively hid his excursion, barring one last task. He returned to the bathroom and scraped at the soap scum and grit that infested it now.

He didn’t have a clock he could use. His tablet’s buttons were opaque-- Galra didn’t have the same iconography humans did, and it always took time for him to puzzle out the features. The clock was a square marked with two numbers-- he’d thought it was a calculator until he’d found an alarm system. What time would the servants wake him at? How long were Gal’s days? 

“Fuck,” he muttered. He distantly remembered the numeral system in Galran. According to the clock-- and a bit of help from the thirteen o’clock meeting-- he discovered it was fifteen o’clock of thirty-six hours. What time would the servants come? He didn’t know, which made the alarm borderline useless. He set the alarm, through trial and error, for a few hours away. By then, he prayed, the clothes would be dry, and he could stash them away and sleep for real.

It worked less well in practice. He slept through the first alarm he set, and woke to Hyladra stirring to wakefulness. By then, the clothes were toasty, dry, and stiff. Keith stumbled from bed, grabbing the corners so he could shake them into a semblance of softness. He rolled them and and twisted and shook, and while the cardboard-like feeling lessened, it never truly went away. He threw them into a pile and hoped nobody looked too close. Then he crawled back into bed.

His sleep, before, had been restless. There’d been no dreams, and he’d hovered at the edge of waking. Flat on the circular bed, the flickering flames in the centre played shadows and light at his dark vision. His back had ached when he woke. 

Now, he curled against the bed’s walls. The sheets and pillows were warm and soft. He dozed and nuzzled deeper into the bed without thinking. The lingering thought that it was a little  _ too  _ catlike drifted by unnoticed. Sleep was more important. 

When the servants descended on him, Keith still felt exhausted. Nobody commented on yesterday’s clothes, though, and they let him doze in the dust bath for a long time, as though reading his mood. When Keith stumbled out of the bath, servants appeared, as though summoned by the sound. They laid out a simple outfit of white pants and a shirt, and a thin red robe that they left open. When dressed, they hurried him from his room, into the main lounge.

“Would you like a light breakfast,” the older woman who led the servants asked, “or are you particularly ravenous, my Prince?”

He glanced around. Hyladra still wasn’t in the room yet, but he knew she’d be hungry. He could feel it, after all. “A meal for two,” he said, “if possible. My thanks, Miss--?” 

She seemed to waffle on actually answering. He’d left room for her to dodge the request. “Miss Gryva,” she said finally. “It is an honour to serve you, Prince Caith.” Gryva left him to the care of other servants after the admission of her name. Presumably, to deal with the food, but it left him to the chattering servants.

“Did you like the style you had yesterday?” a young woman asked. “Would you like something done with your claws?”

Keith opened his mouth to speak, but another servant rushed over, a tin of pins jingling with their movements. “We should try something new,” they admonished. “The Emperor will have great expectations.”

The woman frowned. “He has simple tastes--”

“--and nobody has met them,” the servant said. They placed the tin down and began to quickly brush Keith’s hair. There were a few tangles after his adventure. “The Emperor encourages simplicity, yes. But none of those following his tastes have charmed him, Heida. Why not try something new?”

“Prince Caith charmed him,” Heida said, sulking. “And he wore a simple outfit!”

“Imagine what he could do with the colours of the moons!” A strange phrase. Keith translated it as  _ dressed like a peacock _ . The servant fluffed his hair up into a lion’s mane. “Let us make him  _ fierce _ and wild, dressed in the finest clothes, doused in the sweetest perfumes!”

Heida shooed the servant’s hands away. “Kiya, you are being  _ foolish _ . Such garishness would cause a scandal! How would we explain it to others?” she whispered to Kiya furiously

Kiya folded their arms and sighed. “Then I will groom him simply,” they said. “If that is all right with you, Prince Caith.”

Keith suspected his opinion didn’t truly matter. The pair would do what they thought best, and Keith would sit there and accept the treatment. “Whatever you think best,” he said. “I trust in both of you to have knowledge of the Palace’s practices.”

Kiya purred behind him. Heida eyed them, as though they weren’t to be trusted. “Simple,” Heida said firmly. “Relaxed. That is what the Emperor prefers. Tie his hair back, Kiya. I will tend to his fur.”

The matter settled, the pair worked in silence. Other servants neatened the room or arranged themselves to watch the others work. Hyladra arrived when Heida moved to his other hand. Heida had moved to his left hand, a file in her fingers and thankfully translucent polish to the side. 

“You slept well?” Hyladra murmured as she stopped beside him. 

She’d felt every one of his panicked emotions throughout the night. Nervousness talking with Marmora, panic at the stains on his clothes, the rush of exploring Vrikka, and the thrill and freedom of the disk… Hyladra had felt them, and he hoped she’d thought they were truly dreams.

Keith smiled at her as Kiya’s brush fluffed his hair. “Very well,” he said. The ponytail was low this time, tied by a copper band. A trolley trailed after Hyladra’s arrival, laden with pastries, fruits, and cold meats. Gryva composed a plate for him and placed it beside him.

Hyladra’s smile turned lopsided. Keith knew he radiated discomfort, both physically and over the bond. “You look pretty as a kralick in regalia,” she told him. 

He couldn’t ask what a kralick was in front of all the servants. But he made a mental note to ask when they were alone. He needed to know before he met with Zarkon and got into the man’s office. The ‘how’ didn’t matter now. He picked up Gryva’s arranged plate and separated a slice of pinkish meat, an orange melon-ish fruit, and a pair of pastries filled with creamed fruit from the rest. He offered the rearranged plate to Hyladra. She almost took nothing, but he edged it closer, insistent. She took a long oblong pastry crafted from a pink dough. He took it as a victory.

The day before took form again. Dressed and tidied, the servants abandoned him for other tasks. Hyladra sat beside him as he ate. The windows were open, the sun blazing hot, and once again, Keith could almost feel his mind fossilizing in boredom. The Palace seemed to have two modes: political intrigue with danger, and the soul-draining feeling of a forced smile and watching eyes. Caith needed to be inoffensive, preferably pleasant, and more of an ornament than a prince, at least until the servants shuffled him out to be on display. At that point, Zarkon demanded that he perform as Caith-- wide-eyed and nervous, almost coltish, but with the sharp knowledge they both shared that Caith was Keith, the Red Paladin.

It was a wicked game played by a wicked man. And there wasn’t a thing Caith could do: Caith smiled, ate treats, and nodded to every foolish thing sent his way. Keith, though. Keith could do something. The dissonance agonized him. He pushed the feelings down with a piece of pastry down his throat. 

Time bumbled along. He didn’t know how fast it passed, but it wasn’t fast enough. He’d be grateful when Zarkon’s invitation came, and he’d be furious if it didn’t. He hated that too. His patience snapped when the pleasant-looking melon turned out to taste sour. “What is a kralick?” he asked, breaking the room’s grave-like silence. None of the two servants in the room even twitched at him speaking. 

Hyladra’s hands were neatly folded in her lap. She wore a military uniform, though it wasn’t a cadet’s. “They wouldn’t have those among the Blackmouths, would they?” she murmured to herself. “I must have confused you, my Prince. A kralick is the steed of warlords and kings.” She frowned to herself, her hand propping up her chin as he brows furrowed. “Think of it… it is a mammal the size of three Galra. Long, wide, furred.” She shook her head. “Heida, fetch me the Prince’s tablet. I will find him a kralick. I promise you, my Prince, that my comparison was nothing but kindness.”

“I trust that,” Keith said. 

Heida brought the tablet, and Hyladra went to work. She seemed to fuss over which picture to show him. Keith took a slice of browned meat from the trolley. It tasted salty yet rich, almost like a buttery bacon. He was going to become fat at this rate, he thought. Nothing to do but eat, rest, and wait. Would the Red Paladin armor still fit?

“This!” Hyladra announced. She offered the brightly lit tablet, and he took it. 

A kralick was the size of a sedan. Long and wide, it had a low, centaur-like body. Its rear was flat, furred, and ended in a tail that could have smashed the sedan he compared it to. Thick, stumpy legs were situated along the side of the russet fur. A chair had been strapped to the kralick: if weapons hadn’t lined the chair’s sides, it could almost have been called a throne. Instead, it was a Galran chariot. Ribbons, blankets, and jewellery decorated the kralick’s body.

Its front had been left bare. After the second pair of legs, the kralick’s body rose into a torso. A smooth, sandy belly had long arms to either side; the hands clutched a wicked sword in each. Up the trunk, a feral cat-like yet reptilian face glared out. Sharp teeth filled the creature’s mouth, bared for all to see. Its eyes were a hateful black. Even from a distance, Keith knew it’d attack anyone who’d dare come close.

“People  _ ride _ those?” Keith whispered. 

Hyladra grimaced. “Some,” she said. “Kralick are… difficult to keep. Harder to tame. But they were the mounts of high-ranking and strong Galra. Before cars or tanks, we had kralick. And yes, they killed their riders. Legends say it was because they were found weak, but I can say with relative certainty that the kralick were merely  _ hungry _ .”

Keith stared down at the kralick. Every planet had predators, he knew that. He’d always thought, though, that the Galra were the predators. “The Emperor has some?”

“A stable,” Hyladra said. “Though he rarely uses them. They’re more for dignitaries. They cut a striking figure in their regalia. But the Emperor is wise enough not to trust the creatures. Anyone who does tends to lose an arm.”

_ Or worse _ went unsaid. “Are there other animals Gal used for transport? Of people or cargo.” Keith shook his head, aware he tread on thin ground. “My people hated to speak of what we’d left, if you’ll pardon my confusion.”

It turned out that Gal used a variety of animals for transport. Along the coast, some eccentrics used large swimming rodents to pull barges and carry things. The more preferred animal, though, was a muddy-looking furred hippo with a slimmer, more pointed mouth named an Elek. It looked like the deformed offspring of a crocodile and hippo, he thought, with extra hooves. 

“The Hava-- the rodents-- appear in legends and myths. There are old, dead gods whose chariots were carried by Hava the size of the largest Galra.” She shook her head. “It makes for pretty paintings, but the largest hava I’ve ever seen went up to my knees.”

The only other animal they used on Gal was a strange, scaly goat-antelope. Hyladra called it a Jia. The pictures she showed him displayed their curly horns decorated in ribbons. They were short things, but built like bricks. Like all the other animals the Galra used, they ate meat-- including Galra meat, when they were in foul moods.

“The animals we use are largely carnivorous or omnivorous,” she told him, now seated on the arm of his chair. “Eleks mostly live on reeds and fish, while the jia favours insects and small animals. The jia is slow, though-- slow enough that even a stumbling child could catch them. They hunt by relentless pursuit of their quarry. It makes them good for carrying things for long distances.”

He metaphorically walked away from the conversation with knowledge of how  _ few _ large animals existed on Gal. It couldn’t support huge animals on Earth’s scale, at least not outside the coasts. The kralick survived in the dunes on hunted jia, migrating hava, and Galra. At least they had thousands of years ago: they’d been culled from the wild when the Galra had shifted away from wagons and carriages, to shuttles and cars. A healthy population existed on Gal in stables and nature preserves. 

“Nowhere else,” Hyladra had said. “While they are only animals, they have cunning and strength. It used to take a village of warriors to cleanse their dens.”

He didn’t know what to make of Hyladra’s comparison of him to a kralick. Was it just a simple comparison between him as Caith and the admittedly elegant kralick regalia? Or was it a reminder to him of who he was? The first revealed nothing. The second hinted that Hyladra might pity his situation. To ask, though, would mean to risk Hyladra meaning nothing by the statement and then asking questions about his discontent. 

When Zarkon’s invitation came, the sun had scorched the stone outside. The desert’s weak wind did little to fend off the oppressive heat. Keith dozed in his chair, only distantly aware of those around him. Hyladra scrolled through webpages on his tablet. Spikes of humour and a gentle calm helped him sleep. He tried to send back the contentment that rested atop his panic, anger, and worry. He didn’t know if it worked. 

Gryva delivered the news. Hyladra touched him gently over the bond, and he stirred; when he opened his eyes, Gryva performed a quick wawu in front of him. “The Emperor wishes to speak to you,” she said. She held out a letter in a purple envelope. She used both hands and did a wawu when he took it. He peeled it open under the watchful eyes of the servants and Hyladra.

Zarkon had a sense of humour. Nothing had been written on page except for what he now recognized as a kralick’s silhouette. The message, despite the lack of words, was clear.  _ Come to me _ .  _ I, your Emperor, demand it _ .

Asshole, he thought. It didn’t have the vehemence it should have. “Do you believe I’m in a state to see the Emperor?” he asked, eyes on Gryva. 

She didn’t answer immediately. She rocked back on her heels, frowned, and looked him over. “You’re acceptable,” she said. “Your fur gleams, you smell of cactus flowers, and your clothes are neat.  _ Do not _ engage in foolishness, and you will be a heartflower in a bouquet.”

Right. “Thank you,” he said and nodded in her direction. “Hyladra, will you accompany me?”

“Of course,” she said. She put the tablet to the side. Her uniform had a few wrinkles that she tried to smooth out when she stood. When he offered her the letter, she took it swiftly, glanced at it, and then tucked it into her breast pocket. “It seems our meal will continue in the Emperor’s company.”

The halls they took were different: instead of heading to the gardens, Gryva led them along the main arteries of the Palace. They walked through rooms of armor, taxidermied alien animals, paintings, and objects from foreign ships and planets. An obelisk built from a long, red stone had carvings of spindly people, almost arachnid. It was, Keith realized, a war trophy. Just like everything else in the room.

They passed a partial ship engine, and Keith wondered what race had wielded it against Zarkon, only for them to fail and become part of the grim museum. A snarling wolfish-looking woman glared out from a display case. Two dripping black markings stained the areas below her eyes. Was she humanoid in intelligence, or was she like the kralick? He tried not to shudder.

Zarkon’s rooms were on the other side of the Palace, on the ground floor. A half dozen trophy rooms passed before couches began to appear. High-ranking Galra waited on them, surrounded by servants. Sendak perched by a window, a tablet in hand. Keith refused to acknowledge him. Others looked at Keith; Hyladra moved to block their views. Gryva stopped only for the pair of heavy red doors which could have fit a bus.

Fine, light purple amethysts had been inserted along the painted drawings on the door panels. It was Galran art, not the foreign arts in the trophy rooms. Geometric, ordered, yet spiralled, he knew it told stories that he couldn’t read. A dozen guards were split to either side of the door. They wore military uniforms similar to Sendak’s. Was there a connection between that? He couldn’t ask. Their lone commanding officer stood in the centre, arms behind her back. She loomed over every other Galra in the room.

Hyladra saluted. “Vrepit sa,” she said. Gryva did a wawu. Keith didn’t know what to do. Helpless, he just nodded to her, trying to look graceful as he did. “The Emperor requested the Prince’s presence.”

The woman’s eyes were small, but they glowed fiercely. “The Emperor informed me of his desire.” She stepped to the side. As though that activated something, the doors began to swing open. “Keep in mind your station, and may the Emperor and Voice bless you.”

Keith didn’t doubt she’d storm in to defend Zarkon if she thought there was a problem. He kept his gaze forward as he walked into Zarkon’s apartments. The door closed behind him, and he realized none of the others had come with him:

The rooms were larger than any he’d seen at the Palace. Dozens of Galra could fit in each. Pillowy surfaces tempted visitors to naps or dozing. White stone had been polished to a glossy marble-like finish. Paintings from foreign worlds-- of mushroom-forested lands or jungle scenes-- covered the walls between heavy, woven blankets. One painting showed a scaled reptilian creature with long legs dressing a child. A few others were more Galran in nature, full of symbols and designs that he couldn’t read. Others were curving and sinuous in nature.

Stained glass filled some of the windows that would have been open higher up. Others had stained glass shutters and no window pane. Keith tried to resist marvelling at the shimmering colours. Even in the simple first chamber of Zarkon’s abode, he tried not to feel out of place.

“You’re tired,” Zarkon said. “Or you look it.” 

Keith twisted around. Zarkon didn’t wear his armor or a uniform, but instead a simple dark purple robe. He held a thin-fluted glass in hand. A golden liquid filled it. It bubbled and sparkled. “Life in the Palace is… wearing.” That was the kindest way Keith could put it.

Zarkon nodded slowly. “You understand why I prefer Central Command, then. But come-- talk with me under the patio’s awning. I can even promise food!”

It was like a spider inviting the fly into its web. Yet he smiled, nodded, and followed Zarkon into the maze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update is July 5th! I have some really awesome news in the mean time for anyone interested in more writing about Salt and Blood/FMITS. Check it out at the-wenzel.tumblr.com!


	6. Chapter 6

Zarkon had a private garden. Of course he would. Unlike the Palace gardens, there were no planters or separated areas. It was a mass of green transplanted onto a thick bed of rich dirt layered atop the sand. The jungle helped shade the raised patio; its leaves even reached over to stone. Dappled sunlight danced around their feet. Couches woven from reeds and covered in pillows were arranged at the back, near the glass doors. Small tables carved from a light wood were placed between pairs of chairs.

Zarkon, as promised, had food. There were roasted insects, charred lizards, and plentiful things made from cactus nectar, flesh, and candied flowers. Zarkon seemed to particularly enjoy plucking the head off the fat bugs and eating the body before disposing of the head in a little tin. Every time he did it, Keith could feel Zarkon’s gaze stray over to him, as though waiting for Keith to squirm.

“It disgusted the Alteans,” Zarkon said finally, after his fifth bug. “They thought insects were filthy, for scavengers and corpses. Tell me, Keith. Do humans eat insects?”

“Some,” Keith said. He’d seen them offered in a few restaurants. He wouldn’t, if he was honest with himself, eat a bug as a choice. There was too much cultural baggage to the idea. But he knew they were a healthy source of protein and far more environmentally friendly than a steak or chicken nugget. “I imagine for Galra eat them for the same reason humans do.”

“Taste?” Zarkon asked. “Health? Even availability? I’ve seen pictures of your planet. The Alteans took it as a mark of Gal’s lack that we ate such lowly things. Do you not think the same?”

There was a point to the conversation that Keith missed. He knew what Zarkon pushed him toward, though. To prove he wasn’t like the Alteans-- raised on a planet of plenty, gifted with arrogance-- he needed to eat an insect. So instead of answering, he leaned over to Zarkon’s bowl of insects and plucked a fat caterpillar-soft grub. Between his forefingers of his other hand, he popped the head off and tossed it into the tin. The beheaded creature oozed guts from the interior. If he’d been hungry, the ooze would have put him off his appetite. Since he wasn’t, it made his stomach queasy. He held his breath, tossed the bug in his mouth, and began to chew.

It was smooth and creamy. A heavy nut taste filled his mouth, almost like walnuts. Keith smiled, trying to make sure it didn’t bare his smeared teeth.

Zarkon pushed a glass of Mahadra water to him. Keith couldn’t stop a grimace; he tried not to startle when Zarkon laughed, low and rumbling. “You still don’t have a taste for it, do you? Here,” he said, and turned to the trolley nearby. When he straightened, he held a glass of azure blue liquid.

It cleansed away the creamy goo. Someone had squeezed a dozen fruits to make the drink, Keith thought. It was a melange of sweet yet tart juice. It was normal. Keith refused to smile, though. “It tasted good,” he said. It was true, even if if hadn’t enjoyed the experience. “I don’t know why the Alteans were so negative about the practice.”

Zarkon’s smile went deeper than pleasure. Had Zarkon won something, other than Keith eating a bug? Keith scrutinized the man. Maybe it was an attempt to separate Keith from the Galran crimes against Altea? Eating bugs was such a small thing, though. It wouldn’t charm Keith into turning on Allura, even if the Alteans were less than paragons of kindness. Being an asshole didn’t justify the death of said asshole. 

Keith held his new favourite drink close. The damp glass’ chill pierced through his thin clothes. It was a relief: the breeze between the jungle foliage ruffled the tables’ cloths and the leaves all around them. The sound of Vrikka was muted, gentled by what Keith thought had to be walls enclosing the garden. Higher up, he mused, Zarkon had to have a view of the desert in its pure form. “...You’ve caused a scandal,” Keith said.

Zarkon picked out some meats from the trolley next. Keith watched, amazed, as Zarkon wrapped the bugs in little meat slices. Was it a typical practice? He’d never seen the bugs on offer at Central Command, nor in the trolleys Gryva brought him. Was he watching the equivalent of someone on Earth liking pickle and peanut butter sandwiches? 

“Scandal,” Zarkon said finally, “gives the Palace life. They’d be chattering away about the Clarion threat if not for you.”

“Is that why you did it?”

Zarkon popped another bug head off. The bug’s insides oozed over the meat. “Perhaps. What do you think, Prince Keith?”

“Don’t,” Keith said.

Zarkon laughed again. “You’re awfully fond of that word. Don’t what, Prince?”

“Call me prince.” Keith watched Zarkon eat the meat and bug: his teeth were sharp, but short. They weren’t the wicked fangs of other Galra. They reminded him, Keith thought, of Qore’s teeth. “We both know the truth. And I know you do it to make me feel indebted to you for the treatment I receive.”

“Aren’t you?” Zarkon said. There was no fire to his question. “I don’t make such allowances for every prisoner. But I say it not to drag this ugly topic to your mind, but to simply tease you. I find you charming as a prince, Keith.”

“Prince Caith.” Keith forced his hands to remain close on his glass. “There isn’t a Prince Keith. I… I know it doesn’t make sense. But I have to have that.” Too vulnerable, he thought, but he couldn’t claw it back into his mouth. “Between the Clarion and this, there needs to be a Keith still. There’s no one I can talk about this to except for-- Christ above--  _ you _ .” 

“What of Hyladra? Or Volux?”

“Servants are always around, or other Galra.” Keith shook his head. “I sit in a room, eat, and stare at windows. It’s been two days and I’m going mad.” Barring his excursion that Zarkon hopefully didn’t know about. “...And I’m worried about Thace.”

Zarkon took a piece of cactus fruit and dipped it into his Mahadra water. “In what way?”

Keith took a sip of his juice. He tried not to frown into the glass. “I haven’t seen him, or heard anything about him since I arrived.”

“He has a family,” Zarkon said. “I imagine he’s staying with his wife. Do you wish to have him return?”

_ You’re being immature _ , Keith thought to himself. Zarkon’s words gently implied it as well. “Only when he’s ready,” Keith said. “How fares Central Command?”

Zarkon’s lips twitched. “And now your worry goes to Elin and Kymin, and the others you’ve met. Do you worry about the Clarion or Sorrowsingers?”

“Both.” Keith put his glass down and turned to stare down Zarkon. “Are Elin and Kymin okay?”

“You’ll be relieved to know I’ve requested reports on them. Elin has recovered from the partial poisoning, and returned to duty. She is considered a hero among those on the station.” Zarkon reached over to trace Keith’s cheekbone. Keith froze. “Kymin will be coming to the Palace in the coming days.”

Keith’s eyes widened. Then suspicion came, and his eyes narrowed. “Why?”

Zarkon tsked and pulled away. “Trust is so rare with you! He was questioned by the Sorrowswingers, and received a revelation  He’s returning to explore what he experienced under the guidance of the Druids. I felt that with the absence of friends-- and considering your own complaints at this lunch-- it might help for you to have those you know around.”

“...Thank you.” Distrust remained. What was the revelation? How had the Sorrowsingers treated Kymin, and had his doubts been exposed? Keith couldn’t ask any of it. “I don’t suppose you could give me the Red Lion too.”

“If I could trust you not to fly away,” Zarkon murmured, “I would bring you to the Red Lion myself.”

Keith shrugged. “I like my wings.” He stole a slice of meat from Zarkon, who huffed as it vanished into Keith’s mouth. “I’d ask about Voltron, but we know the answer to that one too.” He rubbed at his fingerpads and shook his head. “Are you still going to hold on to the Holts?”

Zarkon leaned back in his chair, his hand reaching up to tap intently at his withered mouth. “Where would I release them, Keith? I can hardly find Voltron as I wish. None of them would trust me to release the Holts, abandon them at a location, and then let Voltron collect them.” Zarkon shook his head. “Sadly, I think only  _ you  _ would trust me.”

It was a horrifying feeling, but Keith would. Zarkon, if the mood struck him and the deal was sealed tight, could be relied on for his word. Among the Galra, such things mattered. “Can I at least see where they are?” Keith paused. “Not see, but know. I want to see that they’re okay. For Pidge’s sake.”

“Pidge?” Zarkon echoed. “...Ah, yes. The Green Paladin. Human names are so strange.” Keith almost interjected, but there was a gleam to Zarkon’s eyes that hinted at his teasing. “Come with me to my study. I will give you the latest news on the Holts, the most strange aliens in Galran territory. You realize, Keith, that humans were almost completely unknown? Until you attacked the Empire.”

What of Shiro, though? He’d fought as a gladiator. Were the fights televised or streamed online? How many people in the Palace had watched Shiro fight and kill, taking joy in the trauma, unthinking of Shiro as a thinking being? 

None of it meant anything to what he’d learned from Marmora, despite what his mind shouted at him. The Voice fed on the Galra, and Zarkon knew it. He let it happen, ensured that the Galra would keep breeding, that children would be drained of life and the young would die young, never knowing that their species granted them centuries. If Marmora told the truth, at least. Who knew about that? There were reasons to lie. 

As Zarkon led him down the halls, then up a set of wide stairs, Keith found himself consumed by the what if. He couldn’t demand answers from either Zarkon or Marmora. Both had incentives to lie-- Marmora to get the information they needed, and Zarkon to maintain whatever strange relationship he had. Yet that didn’t ring as authentic, he thought. Zarkon enjoyed Keith’s company, but Zarkon never denied the horrible things he did. He gave justification, sure. But he’d never denied killing Alteans and destroying Altea. Were the justifications that innocent, though? Likely not. 

Zarkon himself wasn’t innocent, and his motives were clear. He wanted to take Keith and remake him into a Galra. He didn’t want Keith himself to be gone. At least, judging by the touches, the words, and the subtle feelings that flashed behind Zarkon’s eyes. Telling Keith that the Galra were being murdered en masse wouldn’t lure him into Zarkon’s trap. It’d force Keith into a hostile position. Zarkon wouldn’t want that. If Keith asked anyway, not only would he likely get denial, he’d get questions on where he’d got such ideas. His head hurt by the time they climbed another set of stairs, smaller this time, to a pair of open iron doors. 

The study was the size of Keith’s entire apartment. Bus after bus could have fit. Swirls of red and purple mixed into the white stone floor. Their glossy surface chilled his footpads. Giant bookcases lined the circular room: they were made of darkly stained reddish wood, and their shelves held veritable tomes of knowledge. Squeezed between two bookcases was a crackling fireplace. There were couches, chairs, two holostations, and a desk that stretched long enough to fit a dozen Galra. Papers, folders, binders, and tablets covered the beautiful red wood. 

Keith stared at it. “...Do you not have an assistant?” He pointed at a towering stack of papers that threatened to topple. “Or a janitor?”

Zarkon stood beside him, squinted at the aftermath of a whirlwind, and hmphed. “It’s fine,” he said. “Look at the view--”

“And miss that ten thousand years hasn’t taught you organization?” He tread on thin ice, he knew that. He walked to the desk, to the only chair’s section which had been spared the worst of the mess. The floor to ceiling window allowed the bright sunlight of Gal to illuminate every word on the pages, though he couldn’t read much beyond numbers. Miles upon miles of desert stretched out as far as the eye could see. There were no signs of civilization, nor were there carefully tended gardens. Rolling hills of sand, scattered scrubland close to the Palace, and rocks filled the otherwise bland scene. The reddish sand was almost white under the sun’s beams. 

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Zarkon asked. He stood beside, his gaze not on the landscape but on Keith. “Every artist I’ve shown it to has wished to put it on canvas, or turn it to a song. In the middle of a city-- the capital of the universe’s empire-- pure, simple wilderness. The contrast is charming.”

“You’re a big fan of it too,” Keith said. “How many of those paintings or songs did you pay for?” He grinned up at Zarkon, who smirked. “But you wanted to show me information on the Holts.”

“I did.” Zarkon leaned over and tapped at a projected keyboard atop a book. The window and its sunlight turned to a screen: the symbols were nothing he knew. His gaze followed the Galran cursor of a spiral. Zarkon clicked and typed like he’d grown up with computers, and it hit Keith, then, that the Gal of ten thousand years ago had been just as advanced as the world now. Sure, things got smaller and faster, but Zarkon wasn’t someone transported from the 1700s to 2050. It made Keith wonder how the Gal of ten thousand years ago compared to the Gal of now.

A window popped up on the screen. It started black-- a little square in the centre that filled from right to left in blocks that rose and fell. When the square filled in a few seconds, a camera feed appeared. The Holts waited in two cells-- one for Matt, the other for the Commander. They were dressed in simple prison garb-- trousers, a turtleneck, and plain shoes. Tablets had been given to each. Trays of food were placed on an outcropped table built into the wall.

Little Galran numbers were displayed in the right corner. He squinted at them. They were, he thought, the same as the numbers displayed on the desktop screen. It was a live feed. “Is this--?” He didn’t know what it was. 

Zarkon filled in the blank for him, either assuming Keith knew more than he let or being gracious. “A nearby prison colony. The Holts are a clever family: I would have offered them luxury, but I have little holding them to Gal.”

Keith frowned at the screen before he brushed away the expression. “You sent Matthew Holt into an arena.”

Zarkon didn’t look at him. His eyes were fixed on the screen. “A mistake by a subordinate. They believed that the prisoners served no purpose.”

“And the others sent to the arena?” Keith asked. He kept his voice soft. “Shiro told me about others there.”

“Traitors,” Zarkon said. “Others are slavers, murderers, professional killers who wish to gain riches, or even thieves. While I hardly condone such practices, other races in the Empire enjoy gladiatorial fights, or have people to spare and thus sell them to those who do. The officer who found the two Holts and your Shiro assumed only the Commander would be valuable. The other two were given to the closest minor kingdom-- they are avid practitioners of arenas.”

Zarkon could be lying. The footage could be doctored. Neither would be hard. Maybe, on Gal, there were even arenas that he hadn’t seen yet. What about the colonies too? And if Zarkon held such distaste for gladiatorial fights, why did he let them happen in places he controlled? The Galra, before Voltron, had run the universe. If someone had done something they didn’t like, intervening wasn’t a risky proposal. 

It could be, though. At Central Command, he’d heard of people being deployed to other areas of the Empire. Mentions of aliens was rare, but it existed. If the Galra didn’t need to constantly enforce their will on the universe, why else would they have such a large standing army? Not all species like the Balmerans had lost the concept of fighting back. Add in the fire Voltron had brought to the hearts of other species, and it could exacerbate an already unstable empire.

“I wasn’t aware,” Keith said. “I knew there were… problems, I guess. But not that.”

Zarkon closed the window. The Holts hadn’t moved beyond taps at their tablets. “I have had ten thousand years,” Zarkon mused, “to make the empire perfect. Yet here I find myself, Emperor, with flaws abounding. Civilization means such different things to different species… I have tried so many times to brighten the darkness of this universe. Yet even the kindest words or the harshest actions have produced little. If I had the inspiring words of your Princess Allura, I might find myself more successful. Or-- more likely-- she’d find that her charms worked only to change minds so long as she was in the same room.”

“You speak from experience?” Keith looked down at the desk. “She’s the leader of a resistance. You were a military officer who became the leader of Voltron-- and the Emperor of the Galra. I imagine you had her charisma once. Until the shine wore off.”

Zarkon laughed, short and ugly. “The shine wears off quickly for anyone who does anything. Princess Allura, no matter what I think of the Alteans, was a charming child. While she’s faced the ugliness of the world, it has not sunk into her skin yet.” Zarkon shook his head. “She will find her virtues compromised and her morals tarnished. It is the inevitability of leadership. I do not enjoy gladiatorial fights-- yet I must allow them to spare the lives of the many, to the sacrifice of the few.”

Keith waffled on what to do before he leaned in to Zarkon’s solid figure. It wasn’t a hug, nor was it a cuddle, but more something to transfer warmth and comfort. “I don’t envy you,” Keith admitted. “I don’t envy Allura either. This-- where I’m from, I was being trained to be a soldier. I wasn’t expected to make choices like either of you, and I still fucked things up.”

“Soldiers make choices every time they lift their weapons.” Zarkon sighed. “But yes, there is a difference between where I find myself and the position you’ve filled. Circumstances may soon demand more of you than you are willing to give, however.”

Did Zarkon know? How many cameras were in his rooms? He’d hoped there’d be none, but maybe Zarkon was less sure about his guard on Keith than he’d thought. Keith smiled, thin-lipped. “Promising.” He tried not to be overt as he scanned the table. He wasn’t even sure he was going to steal it. Doing so risked the unspoken agreement he and Zarkon had. All his freedoms, likely all the luxury as well, would vanish. 

If Marmora told the truth, though, how could he not steal the document? Maybe if he was caught, he could play the victim. He doubted Zarkon would buy it. Zarkon had too much faith in his mind to think Keith a victim. 

There was one folder with a kralick shadow embossed on it. Either Marmora was lucky at guessing, or one of their operatives had been in the study recently enough to spy it. It was just in reach. He could distract Zarkon and slip it into his shirt. Two choices, then. He could point and wait for Zarkon to look away, or he could go the more natural route and knock everything over. Was he enough of an asshole to do that? It’d make work for Zarkon or one of the servants. He didn’t want to be an asshole, yet he knew Marmora needed the folder.

Keith leaned over the desk, his gaze glued to the horizon. “You never see anything in the desert, do you?”

“Rarely,” Zarkon said. “Sometimes animals wander through, or a particularly cunning drunk. One time, a flock of kefla decided to nest for the season around the patch of cacti. I had to stop the servants from chasing the birds out.”

Keith’s mouth twitched into a smile without thinking. “Did you feed them?”

Zarkon laughed. “A few times,” he admitted. “Life is hard on Gal, and the birds merely wished to raise their young in peace.” 

Now or never. He pulled back and twisted to the side to look up at Zarkon. “Aren’t you a softie,” he said as one of the piles wobbled. “Oh, fuck--”

He took out the first stack by bumping a book. The second-- a series of jenga-esque folders-- found its doom in the first stack’s collapse. It was like a domino effect. Keith jerked away from the falling towers. Zarkon swore and-- to Keith’s surprise-- dove to save a pile of books. It let Keith snatch the kralick folder and stuff it into his shirt. The white fabric discoloured slightly, but there were no other signs he could see. Keith lunged after Zarkon to help.

The disaster compounded itself. Stacks fell into stacks. A few pages and folder fluttered into the fireplace: Keith ignored them, though Zarkon tried to grab at a few of the sheets. “I’m so sorry,” Keith said. It wasn’t completely acting. He pinned down a half dozen thick tomes with his body. “Jesus Christ, I’m sorry--”

Zarkon didn’t speak. Something deep in Keith’s stomach sunk. It occurred to him, then, that Zarkon had killed billions, that he ran an empire built on strict order and discipline, and he wasn’t famous for his patience. A punch from Zarkon could kill Keith. How angry was Zarkon? Keith had destroyed the very heart of the Empire by playing the clumsy fool. Some of the documents were gone, eaten by the fire. How important had they been?

Zarkon pulled back, away from the fire and the desk. Keith couldn’t see his face.  Any order that’d once existed was long gone now. “I don’t know who Jesus Christ is,” Zarkon said, “but may they have blessed me so that none of the papers that burned were the new ones.”

“I’m sorry,” Keith said again, as though that’d fix anything.

Zarkon reached out and touched his shoulder. Then he laughed, low and warm. “I will take it as a sign to clean,” Zarkon said. He sighed and reached over to brush a stray lock of hair back from Keith’s face. “I fear if I send you away, you will take offense.”

“No,” Keith said as he shook his head. “This is stuff I shouldn’t see, and I wouldn’t know the importance of each piece, even if I were to help. I can only apologize for being so clumsy.” He grimaced. “I can’t tell if it was because I’m still not sure on the whole Galra thing or I just wasn’t paying attention.”

“Neither,” Zarkon said. “You are graceful as a kefla in the air, and only the worldly chaos of my study grounded you.” Zarkon contemplated him. “Tell me you’ll come to dinner tonight.”

Keith looked up at Zarkon. “I promise not to ruin dinner too,” Keith said dryly. Zarkon chuckled. The eerie sensation that he’d dodged a dozen bullets followed him from the study, down the stairs, and back through the huge doors that led into Zarkon’s apartments. 

Gryva and Hyladra waited for him still. Gryva perked up from her chair; Hyladra hurried over, as though worried he’d have been injured while they were separated. “Your hair is still in place,” Hyladra murmured when she came close. 

“I wasn’t aware that was such a big deal,” Keith muttered back. 

Hyladra snorted. “We’ll talk in your rooms,” she said. 

A few people pointed at them as they left, but quick scoldings from those around them quickly ended the affair. Keith’s hair, while shaggy, still rested in a tie. He suspected it saved them from the worst gossip. Gryva hurried them back to his rooms at a clip, as though it was an emergency. When they were in, she turned on her heel, opened her mouth, and then closed it before she shook her head. 

“I don’t want to be forward,” she finally said. “I understand that I am merely a servant, and you are a prince.”

Keith tensed, even as Hyladra took up her post at his shoulder. “What do you want to ask?”

“Has he declared his intentions?” Gryva asked. 

Was he in a Jane Austen novel? “There are no intentions.”

Gryva shook her head. Her soft, limp ears flopped with the motion. “He removed your hair tie, Prince Caith. I’m not sure how your people see such a thing, but for those on Gal, it means a more… romantic interest.”

Bullshit, Keith thought. “Or the colour offended him.” Hyladra choked on a laugh. “Is this really a thing on Gal?”

Gryva nodded. “In the time of Great Heroes, a great Lady of the Rivers from the coast came to visit the Warlord of the Sands. She wore the dark blues of the river, and her long, flowing hair was tamed only by a strand of cloth.” She reached up to her own short hair. “As the Lady of the Rivers, her powers had to be confined. Flooding would kill the Galra and harm the trees and animals. But when the Warlord of the Sands saw her, he reached for the tie and pulled it loose. For he had the strength to contain her power, and she would never have to hide herself in his arms.”

Keith tried not to stare. So it was a myth about the flooding coastal rivers experienced. The rivers had been reluctant to flow as strong as they could until the sands ‘agreed’ to absorb the overflow. Except, for the Galra, it’d somehow become a romance that’d created an obsession with hair ties. 

“That’s… interesting.” Keith crossed his arms. The folder under his shirt bent under the touch, and he tried not to jerk away from it. “I get the hair tie thing now, but I promise, he didn’t say anything about romance while with me.”

Gryva sighed. “I’m not sure you’d notice it,” she said. She shook her head. “But I will free you from my gossip, my Prince. Do you require someone to help you freshen up?”

“I’m fine.” He turned slightly to look at Hyladra. “I’ll be quick. Wait for me outside?”

It wasn’t like Hyladra had a choice, but he needed time alone to stash away the folder. Once inside his room, he locked the door and began to hunt for the dirtiest spots. Servants cleaned the floors and spaces between dressers and his bed. Drawers were organized daily. With no special correspondence, he was allowed no privacy at his desk. The balcony risked rain, wind, and cleaning servants. The only closet was in the bathroom, and that had every speck of dust cleaned from it. 

He slumped against the dust bath. The folder looked a bit worse for wear, but its contents were fine. There were maybe twenty pages to it, all in fine print. It would take weeks, if not months, to carefully type up all the text. People would notice. 

He’d got the folder. What did he do with it now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update's on the 14th! In the meantime, I've added another part to Between Shadows and Light-- side stories! Its name is 'Quiet Moments': http://archiveofourown.org/works/11409813/chapters/25557720


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zarkon paced slowly, but his movements carried a strange energy. “I have not told anyone this, Keith. No one except for you. Only a fellow Paladin could understand. When the first Paladins fought, they fought in machines. Machines dictated by programming, switches, and keys. They were-- they were far from what they are now. The Lions were confined by mortal limits. They could only move as fast as a mortal could tap a button or push a lever. Their design was magnificent: enough to save what was left of our universe. But what would happen in the next wave? What would happen if the next invaders were more advanced?”
> 
> Zarkon shook his head again. “Those seconds could not be spared, Keith. Which is why-- when the war ended-- those involved in Voltron’s creation asked a final sacrifice.”
> 
> “No,” Keith breathed. Zarkon’s bright eyes watched him. “That’s not-- they wouldn’t do that!”
> 
> “The Red Lion feels so life-like,” Zarkon said, “because she was once a Paladin. The first Red Paladin-- supposedly a Syf, though whether that legend can be trusted, who knows? But each Lion’s quintessence comes from their original Paladin. Their minds fuse with yours. They respond not just to your touch but your impulses and subconscious thoughts.” Zarkon laughed, airy and slightly crazed. “It is revolting, is it not? Horrifying. Yet when I think of the Black Lion, I ache for his presence. Voltron would not be Voltron without their sacrifice.”
> 
> The Red Lion had been a person. So many millennia ago, she’d been chosen to defend her world from an invading force. Then they’d asked her to die and live on in a machine-- a machine that would pass down from person to person to person, each of them dying in the end.
> 
> -Chapter 17, Find Me In The Shadows

He stashed the folder under a scale. It was a garbage hiding place, but life hadn’t seen fit to spoil him with choice. He turned to the sink, rubbed some fresh water on his hands and face, and sat under a dryer, grimacing. When he left the room, servants descended on him to fix his hair and clothes. They tightened his hair tie after they tucked in the loose strands. His clothes were plucked at, puffing out the shoulders and smoothing out the creases. 

Kiya purred in pleasure. “You look excellent,” they told him. “Have you thought about dyeing your hair?”

“Kiya,” Heida said, agonized. 

Kiya shrugged. “It would be spell-binding if he imitated the salt walls--”

Gryva shooed them away as an argument broke out. “My Prince,” she said. “You look lovely. How do you wish to spend your afternoon?”

Sitting around looking out the window would be painful when he knew the folder waited under the scale. He’d hooked it into the interior of the bottom-- it’d taken some twisting and bending, but if the scale was nudged, the folder was unlikely to fall and be noticed. Unlikely being the operative word. He didn’t want to leave it alone, but there were bigger things to deal with. Like how he was going to translate it and find the information Marmora wanted before he agreed to hand it over. Keith was an idiot, but not a complete one. 

“A quick rest before I go out,” Keith said. That gave him an hour to think over what to do. He breathed deep as others led him to the couch, and he tried not to be too tense as people fluttered around, arranging things to a sterile perfection. No wonder Zarkon hated the Palace, Keith thought. Everything was so fake, filled with fools, snakes, and people whose duty demanded that they tend to the rules of the Palace set in stone millennia ago. 

Who could translate the documents? They needed to be someone who knew how to read Galran, someone who wouldn’t tell Zarkon or others, and someone who wouldn’t lie to him. Hyladra would report Keith to Zarkon. He didn’t hold it against her-- she had been raised as a soldier, and her entire life had revolved around Zarkon’s whims. Volux was too mercurial, and they’d thrown their lot in with the Voice long ago. Thace had only bended the rules in hopes of saving Wrin. Keith’s intervention had saved him, but it wouldn’t a second time. Even if Thace questioned some of Zarkon’s decisions, it didn’t mean he doubted the man himself.

Kymin counted as a possibility, but with the news about his revelation, Keith didn’t know what state Kymin would be in. The Sorrowsingers were too big of an unknown. They could have tore Kymin to pieces. Or Kymin could have played the chameleon and slipped free from their clutches.

Remembering the reactions of the Clarion to the threat of Druids, though, he suspected it the former. 

Who could he use? The only other person-- entity, really,-- that he had a bond with the Galra had concealed somewhere far away on Gal. The Red Lion spoke a dated, old Galran, and he didn’t know if it could be coaxed into letting him read modern Galran. The two bonds he had with the Lion and Hyladra would complicate the matter. But he knew the Red Lion wouldn’t turn on him, and if she could help, she would.

Could he use the Red Lion, or could he manipulate his bond with Hyladra and use her knowledge of Galran without her realizing? He choked on the wave of disgust that thought brought. Hyladra had bonded to him thinking it an act of kindness and friendship. She cared about him, even if that care brought her to decisions he disagreed with. To take the bond and warp it to something like that felt like more than betrayal. It was Judas-like, even if for a noble goal.

It left him with the Red Lion. Volux had warned of agony should he reach out to her, but he’d take it. He’d need to do it when Hyladra slept, he thought, if it was even possible. And who knew about that? The only person who knew anything about bonds that Keith could talk with was Volux. How could he convince the Druid, though? Vague memories about Keith’s eyes and how Volux said they wanted to study them came, but they were tinged with irony now. Would Volux still be interested, especially at the Palace? All Keith could do was ask. 

As he waited in the living room, he counted the seconds and minutes like they were drops of water in a desert. The sooner he left, the faster he could talk to Volux and the faster he could get rid of the folder. It gave him time to think about how he’d phrase things to Volux. Why was he suddenly interested? Boredom sufficed for a surface answer, but Volux cared little for surface reasons. Maybe concern that the Voice had passed him by at the rain-watching party, but that sounded vain. Not that Volux likely put it past him to be vain, Keith reflected. Maybe he could phrase it better, as more of curiosity about the Voice and the bonds that struggled inside Keith to make him a functional Galra. Did Volux think him that bright?

Possibly. A lot of his reasons would depend on Volux’s mood. The realization made him frown before he hid it away. 

“Gryva,” he said when he thought it roughly a half-hour since he’d started ‘resting’. “Can you locate Druid Volux? I have matters to discuss with them.”

Gryva perked up from her post at a chair nearby. She hurried to her feet, motioned at two other servants, and did a wawu for Keith. “Of course, my Prince.”

Keith waited on the couch as seconds ticked by. What would Volux say? Keith risked blunt refusal before he could even sell his pitch on Volux helping him with quintessence, bonds, and the manipulation thereof. When the holostation in another room chimed, the tension in Keith didn’t release. Hyladra hurried off to answer it, leaving Keith to deal with the brightening sunshine that poured through the window from the afternoon sun. He didn’t sweat like a human anymore. Instead his feet and hands exuded heat as his breathing turned to a pant. Galra were meant to go underground now, but there wasn’t a chance to on Keith’s floor. It was partly why the Palace’s administration assigned it to low-regarded notables. 

Volux came with Gryva’s return. Their mask hid their expression, but Keith read impatience in their stride and annoyance in their nod. “Prince Caith,” they said, tone clipped. “I was informed you wish to discuss things with me.”

“In private,” Keith said. He stood from the couch, his stiff joints cracking as he did. Hyladra hissed at the sound, but nobody else acknowledged it. “I have questions about the Voice and her grace.”

Volux paused before they replied. “Then let us begin. Where is your study?”

Keith might have been embarrassed to bring Volux to his room if not for the fact it was neatly organized and bland. It was like a room from Galra IKEA. There wasn’t anything personal for Volux to peer at. Keith took a seat at his desk and motioned at a nearby wicker chair. Volux perched on it, back stiff. When the door closed, they spoke. “What do you want?”

Waspish but not unusual. “I want to talk about quintessence.”

“Those are largely secrets,” Volux said. “Secrets confined to the Druid Order. Understand that I can tell you little and less.”

“You created a bond between me and Hyladra.” Keith sighed. “The least you can do is tell me about what, exactly, is between us.”

“Are you experiencing problems with it?”

Keith forced tension from his body. “No,” Keith admitted. “But that’s hardly the point. You saw how the Voice passed me by at the rain-watching party. Why? You yourself said you wanted to study me-- my eyes-- to figure out the Voice’s fascination with me. Now that I’m in a Galra form, has your desire disappeared?”

“It disappeared when the Voice passed you by.” Keith snorted and shook his head. Volux tensed. “You think otherwise.”

“I know otherwise.” Keith leaned forward in his chair, his eyes pinned to the mask’s pseudo-eyeholes. Were the eyeholes double-sided mirrors, or did the Druids use quintessence to see? “Your interest is only stronger because of it. So let’s talk, Volux. What exactly is happening with my quintessence?”

Volux mulled over the interrogation, which made it a weak interrogation. “Your quintessence is… weak. As though something drained you. Your bond with Hyladra has kept the worst effects from reaching you, but more will sicken you. I don’t know what took your quintessence. Perhaps stress and injury.”

Keith nodded. Maybe it was because of his eyes-- hs body used his quintessence to heal them. “You think my low quintessence might be keeping the Voice from looking at me?”

“You’re incredibly concerned about that for someone who has never enjoyed Her attention.” Volux neatened their robe’s sleeves. “But yes, she might sense your presence less. The eyes are not just important physical organs, but spiritual ones too.” Volux motioned to their mask. “We cover them for a reason, after all.”

“If I wanted to reach out to her, how would I do that?”

Volux stiffened. “You  _ wouldn’t _ . The Voice understands individuality in Her own way-- a way that frequently destroys. You’ve experienced it yourself. Why do you wish to commune with Her?”

“Because…” He hesitated, hoping it added to the effect. “She knows me. She’s spoken to me, and I haven’t reached back. Not really. She turned me into a Galra-- I need to know why, and I need to understand her interest in me. It can’t just be the Lions.”

Volux crossed their arms as they leaned back. “It is an understandable reason,” Volux admitted. “It is still dangerous. It takes Druids decades to properly speak to Her without harm. I could facilitate communication, but it is a risk. You are unlikely to get what you want out of it either.”

He wasn’t after the Voice. But the opportunity to get outside him-- to possibly see the bond that tied him and Hyladra, and the frozen link for him and the Red Lion-- made the risk worth it. “It’s worth a shot. I think she has a lot to say to me, and I’m ready to listen.”

Volux shook their head. “Few are. But you will simply contact another Druid if I don’t do it, won’t you?” 

“Yes,” Keith lied. He wasn’t sure if he actually would. There was too much secrecy tied up in his existence as Caith. What if they heard his thoughts about his change, or saw his bonds to Hyladra and the Red Lion? It would destroy his cover in seconds. “Should we go to the temple, then?”

Volux stood, their arms still folded. “I would prefer not to do this in your bedroom, yes. The last thing you need is more gossip.”

But when they left his room, Keith saw the sidelong looks and heard whispers as he left with Volux. He doubted it was about romance or scandal, but it seemed others thought it unusual for a Druid to visit even a notable Galra personally. It fit with his backstory, though-- Caith had just converted, and why wouldn’t he have questions, concern, and curiosity? 

The Palace’s temple had been built below ground. Similar to Central Command’s temple, it had cloth-covered walls, fires, and smoky incense that perfumed even the halls outside the temple. There were more Druids, yet there were even more temple-tenders. Beside wawus, there was little acknowledgement of Keith’s passage. Most focused on Volux, who they greeted in quiet voices from the temple tenders and nods from the other Druids.

The temple could fit over a thousand people easily, though Keith wondered if the notables worshipped alongside servants. He almost asked, but it felt inappropriate to. He’d never been invited to attend service, at least not yet. 

“We’ll go to a side room,” Volux said, “before service starts.”

Keith nodded. “Will we be attending the tail end of it?”

“No,” Volux said. “You’re not ready for a proper service. Your initiation has been… messy. Incomplete. To send you into the worshippers would be to let you take on the practices of others, and not the practices the Voice asks for.”

Likely, it was all an excuse to keep him away from the Voice or even to solidify Zarkon’s guard on him. Keith didn’t push further. All that mattered was them getting to the room and what happened after. 

The side room looked more polished than Central Command’s. Smooth wood covered the floor, while painted stone wall insulated the room. Dry heat came from the fire and incense. The fire’s white smoke puffed up, clean and almost pine-like in scent. Tapestries hung from the walls, decorated in sharp shapes and deep colours. In the centre around the fire, pillows, chaise lounges, and little clay kettles were arrayed.

Volux locked the door when they were in and went to attend to the fire. It left Keith to wander the room, looking at the tapestries. There were silhouettes of kralick, he noticed, and he tried not to feel proud that he understood even just a little piece of Galran art. Behind him, wood crackled and snapped as Volux poked and prodded. The smoke’s smell turned heavy by the time Keith returned to where he’d started. Keith forced back a jaw-cracking yawn. 

“Take a seat on the chair,” Volux said. They jabbed at a stubborn log that clung to the fire pit’s lip. It snapped in half after another whack and fell into the mass of charring logs. “Lay back, close your eyes, and breathe in the smoke.”

“It isn’t poisonous, is it?” Keith asked as he took a seat. The pillows were like little clouds. He sank into them, which didn’t help the drowsiness that kept nudging him. “The Duskflower fumes were.”

Volux sighed. “It won’t kill you,” they said, as though that were a good answer. “Breathe in, Caith. Don’t argue.”

It wasn’t like he had a choice. He let his head fall back against the chair and frowned up at the ceiling. Volux murmured something to themself, the sound the moan of mountains and the creak of a door. The human in him wanted to call it ugly. After so long around the Galra, though, it sounded almost soothing.

Flickering flames danced over his lids. Their light would have been hellish if not for the heavy warmth of the smoke and the knowledge that Volux crouched nearby, tending to the wood. Maybe that was the true purpose of the temple tenders, Keith thought. They existed to make the temples and the Voice’s power seem natural. Select Galra lived at the temples, obsessed with the Voice’s mysteries, yet they would serve water, dance, and care for the audience. How bad could the strange rituals the Voice demanded be if Keirin the Tuvani hurried about, almost tripping on the hem of his robe as he refilled amphora?

“Focus on my voice,” Volux said. He jumped and Volux sighed. “Calm, Caith. You were getting close; let us return to that.”

Keith forced himself to relax. He imagined the tension flowing out, into the chaise lounge, and then into the ground and away. Volux took to humming the song again. Sleep rested on him like a blanket. The fire’s warmth spread over him, and he fell to a numb state of darkness and an almost subconscious buzzing that kept him aware of Volux and the flames. 

“Good,” Volux murmured. They didn’t touch him. Shadows passed and twisted above. The numbness kept him pinned. “You are not alone, Keith. There is someone in your heart. You know Her name.”

The Voice. Had she stayed with him between encounters? Keith didn’t know. He followed Volux’s direction, though, and tried to let her make her presence known. Something fluttered in his stomach. He suspected it was more hunger than anything else. 

“Keep looking, Keith.”

_ Let us get this over with _ , he thought to the Voice. It didn’t rouse her attention, nor did she thunder to the front of his mind. HIs leg itched. He breathed in and tried to imagine the quintessence that had to flow around him and Volux. The Red Lion’s bond would be shown in it. His eyes twitched.

The world didn’t reveal itself to his eyes. Quintessence washed over him like a warm ocean, it seaweed-like ropes wrapped around him. When they touched his hands, visions sparked over his mind’s eye. He watched a bird peck at a balcony railing as he waited for someone to return. Worried curdled the scene, even as the bird hopped back and forth. Its scales were a smooth cream brown, edged with red. Its three eyes kept swivelling to look at the servants that bustled about the room. A tongue flicked out as it licked one of its lower eyes. The strand’s end trailed from his skin; another length of quintessence caressed him, and the scene vanished.

He didn’t see, nor did he feel. Instead, he heard. Wind whistled through the compound. Galra spoke in the distance, their laughs rough yet nervously subdued, as though they had something to fear. Vehicles roared, blotting out the voices. Tents flapped. When the sounds receded, someone opened a lighter, the clink of metal deafening.

Keith grasped the quintessence.  _ Come closer _ , he thought.  _ I’m right here. So, so close _ . The sounds dimmed. Keith’s breathing hitched. A hand touched his cheek, the skin silky smooth and edged with feathers. 

Pain stabbed into his gut. He jerked, biting down on his tongue to keep the sound of pain in. Volux couldn’t know what he’d done. He’d never get a chance to do it again. He couldn’t tense, he couldn’t whimper, he couldn’t even open his eyes. Let Volux think the jerking resulted from contact with the Voice. It wasn’t like she was coming--

She grabbed him around the waist and  _ yanked _ . Something cracked inside him, like a crumbling statue, and the quintessence he held snapped around him. The Red Lion roared as the Voice pulled. The Lion met her strength. Keith felt his quintessence stretch and pull like taffy, but he had none of the elasticity. He moaned in pain, unable to move between the two forces that warred in his body.

The Voice lashed out with claws. The Lion endured the hit only to snap at the Voice with wet fangs. They howled and screamed, one a lone voice of air and light, and the other of desert winds and darkness. He couldn’t tell which was which: the sound and pain and panic clouded his mind, and he struggled to crawl from the battle.

Someone spoke his name.  _ Keith, open your eyes _ , a voice commanded. But dirt and sand swirled around him, and if he opened his eyes, it’d blind him. He tried to use his hands to find his way through the storm. Rocks with their bottoms deep in the sand provided handholds to drag himself forward. The Voice keened in a thousand voices, the sound coming from all directions. The Lion’s roar almost deafened Keith, even as it drowned out the Voice’s screams. 

He needed to get away, but to where? He couldn’t see where he went, and he doubted there were caves, hills, or even a rock to hide behind. Everything felt grainy in his hands, and even the rocks had been shattered to fit into the palm of his hand. The debris storm crashed over him like a stinging wave; Keith curled inward, trying to avoid the worst of it. Rocks ripped at his clothes and dug into his scalp. He couldn’t breathe as the storm continued, covering him more and more. The shrieks and howls muffled, though the quintessence lashed through the sand and rocks, onto his skin and into his body. Flames licked at him, and he imagined scars and burns tracing his bare skin. He paused. Bare skin? He tried to move his ears. Nothing twitched. He reached up and touched his face. 

He was human. Was it permanent or just spiritual? Where was he? What had broken? The thoughts vanished as quintessence stabbed in him. He gasped and hunched further in on himself.  _ Open your eyes _ , the voice from before insisted. It’d hurt, though, he thought. But none of this was real in a physical sense. What was the worst that could happen if he opened his eyes? So he did.

Volux’s face stared down at him. They weren’t wearing a mask. “What did you  _ do _ ?” they demanded.

The pain of the quintessence hadn’t lessened. Keith curled in on himself, as though that would truly help. “Ngh,” he said. 

Volux pressed a hand against his chest. Volux muttered something. A pulse of quintessence rushed through Keith, and the pain eased. “What did you do?” Their clipped tone didn’t help Keith’s growing headache.

“I went looking for the Voice,” Keith tried to say. It came out slurred and nonsensical, so he tried again, and then again. He wasn’t sure how much Volux understood, but the Druid nodded.

“Idiot,” Volux declared. “You’re an idiot and a fool and you run to danger like it’s an oasis in a desert.” They cuffed Keith on the head. It didn’t hurt, but it didn’t help his dizziness. “Wait for her. Don’t go searching. Do that again, and I will simply push your body into the fire to wake you up.”

Keith didn’t have the energy to laugh. Agony burbled and boiled inside him, kept at bay by the remnants of the quintessence Volux gave him. He knew, deep down, that the breaking he’d heard had been the block between him and the Red Lion. This was the new normal, at least for the foreseeable future. 

How did he hide it from Hyladra? Her worry preceded an insistent prodding that begged him to say he was okay. He tried to put something together to reassure her, but exhaustion and pain ripped each attempt to shreds. “It’s not going away,” Keith said, though he knew he should have said nothing. “It hurts--”

“The Voice is running through your body,” Volux said. “You pulled Her in. Remove your mind from Her realm, and the pain will cease.” Volux turned away to fiddle with the fire.

What did he do now? He couldn’t admit to Volux that the bond with the Red Lion was no longer blocked, but the pain from the bond felt like a shattered leg. His vision blurred when he sat up. He’d pass out if he tried to walk back to his apartment. Could he sit around on the balcony in this kind of pain and have no one other than Hyladra notice? 

Physical painkillers wouldn’t work. He needed a constant stream of quintessence, but taking it from either the Red Lion or Hyladra would worsen the pain and cause notice. The only source of quintessence that he could access without people knowing were either vials of pure quintessence or from within himself. The former wasn’t available. He questioned if it was even possible to manipulate his limited quintessence to heal himself. What were Druids’ powers like? Where did they get them? There was no time like the present to find out.

“How did you know you were a Druid?” Keith asked. His strained voice didn’t lend an air of sincerity to the question. “You don’t have a family. You’ve said that, haven’t you?”

Volux paused mid-stab at another log. “Did the Voice show you something?”

“What?” Keith blinked through the blink. He refused to show his watering eyes. “No. You do weird, magical things. You wave a hand, and the pain’s gone. Where does that come from? I’ve known you for months and I know next to nothing about your life.”

“As I prefer it,” Volux said. “A Druid is meant to shed connections to their old life.”

“Qore said that.” Keith rubbed his stomach, as though that would soothe the pain. “She said every Druid taken is favoured by the Voice, and that she leads the order to young Druids. Some families even had the favour passed in their line… she called them Gold-Bleeders.”

“She was too talkative,” Volux muttered. They turned to face Keith. “What else did she say?”

Keith didn’t smile. “That all Galra had the ability to manipulate quintessence. It was just a matter of strength and varying talents. She said that temple-tenders used their skill at dance to channel quintessence into calming the worshippers. She compared me to  _ you _ .”

“She learned this through the Ashwastes Druids, didn’t she?” Volux shook their head. “Loose-lipped fools. If you’re wondering if you could wield lightning and heal, put such thoughts from your head. I won’t waste either of our times denying that the ability to use quintessence is select. But she is-- was-- right that only the most powerful could become Druids. The strongest temple-tender I met could sing songs that lulled strong minds to sleep at service. Nothing more.”

Nothing more. To Keith, it sounded like a lot. “And what about other species?”

Volux stared him down. “No,” Volux said. Then they turned back to the fire to tend to it, as though unwilling to acknowledge the returned Alteans.

“I guess it doesn’t matter. I’m a Galra right now, after all.” He said only part of it to needle Volux. 

It worked. “If you manipulate quintessence,” Volux snapped, “every Druid in this building will know. We feel its currents like the desert winds or the sea’s undertow. We breathe it. If I see  _ any _ quintessence works from you, I will  _ drown _ you in your own toilet.”

Keith nodded, as though worried. But he wasn’t. He’d manipulated quintessence under Volux’s own nose. They didn’t know that the block on the Red Lion’s bond had shattered. Even in pain, hope flushed through him. It came with a caveat: the Druids used the harvested quintessence of those who worshipped. If Keith reached out to manipulate quintessence through himself and the Voice, would he be using the harvested mass that the Voice fed on? Or could he localize it to the amount inside him?

“On that note,” Keith said. “I think she’s gone, and I’ve had all of the Voice I care to today.” He pushed himself up and pretended it didn’t leave him wheezing. The world spun on its axis. The fire’s smoke and the incense throughout the room worsened his vertigo and nausea. “I’d ask for a resting room, but the worshippers are coming, aren’t they?”

Volux’s shoulders relaxed. “They are. It’s best we leave before the rush starts.” Volux hooked the fire poker on a rack. Ashes glittered at the poker’s end. “I will attempt to be… considerate, I suppose, of your condition.”

It was all he could ask for from Volux. It hurt to walk-- his stomach twisted at every step-- and stairs were a misery that he almost collapsed on. Volux never offered a hand nor did they ask if he was okay. They simply took up watch beside him as he collected himself. The presence of a Druid kept most of the attention off Keith, though he received several thorough eyeings by passing notables. 

Returning to his apartments, the place he’d maligned constantly as a cage, felt like a victory unmatched by any other. Hyladra met him at the door. “What did you do,” she hissed as her gaze bounced between Keith and Volux. Gryva, Heida, and Kiya hovered behind her, along with other servants. 

“I did nothing,” Volux said. “Any catastrophes were self-inflicted. I leave him to your care. If he worsens, contact the temple again.” Keith leaned against the door and watched as Volux glided down the hallway, heading to places unknown.

Hyladra offered him a shoulder to hobble along to his room. “Are you sick?” she asked. “You look  _ awful _ .”

“I feel it,” he said. His legs buckled as they passed the threshold. “I need to rest. Just… a bit of time, and I’ll be fine.” A blatant lie, but Hyladra let relief slip through the bond. He reached out and met it with warmth. When the pain snapped at him, he retreated back from the bond. The Red Lion hadn’t reached through the bond yet. She had to know the pain he was in.

His room was dark and inviting. Hyladra helped him to his bed. The soft pillows and warm blankets were gentle; they cradled him as he fell back onto them. “Keith?” Hyladra murmured. “Are you going to be okay?”

She reeked of anxiety and genuine worry. He reached up to clasp her hand. It stung to the touch. “I’ll be fine,” he said. The slight croak to his voice didn’t help. “She was just too much all at once. I needed to talk to her about this.” He nodded at his body. “It hurt, but pain is temporary.”

“It is,” Hyladra said, “but that doesn’t make it hurt less.” She leaned down to press a kiss against his temple. “I’ll fetch you food in an hour?”

The mention of food made his stomach twist, and he grimaced. “Three,” Keith said, though he didn’t know if things would be better by then. “I’m sorry about this. I know you have better things to do.” Like what, though? Her life revolved around his at the Palace. She’d be sitting outside his room, waiting for him to recover so that she could continue her guard beside him in the living room.

Hyladra snorted, obviously thinking the same. “Don’t worry about it,” she murmured. “I’ll be reading a book while I wait. I should be finished by the time you’re ready for food.” She stroked his hair. “May you sleep through the worst of it.”

He didn’t sleep. He closed his eyes and tried to empty his mind, searching for the two bonds that pulled him apart at the seams. The Red Lion would show him what the documents meant. It would be an unnatural twisting of the bond, he knew. She only naturally gave the ability to speak and understand Galran. Even more, would she know the modern written Galran? Zarkon had simplified Galran writing in the time since she’d last had a Paladin. All the risk he’d taken on, he thought, and he didn’t know if she’d even be able to help. It was better than doing nothing, at least.

The struggle between the bond with Hyladra-- the Voice’s bond-- and the Red Lion’s still waged. Outside of the melee, Keith could see the fluctuating winner. One moment, the Red Lion dominated. The other, the Voice pushed her back, away from Keith. Each movement intensified the pain. Scattered between those movements, when one bond dominated, the pain vanished. He was allowed, in those moments, to exist. But then they’d lash out again, vicious and angry.

He needed to talk to the Red Lion. Of the two, she’d understand what was happening the best. The Voice was too inhuman to care for or even notice his pain. So he breathed deep as his body flinched under each assault and reached out to the Red Lion. He’d done it before dozens of times. They knew each other, though distance and time kept them apart.

_ Red _ , he called out.  _ Red! _

The roar inside him subsided. A foreign consciousness pressed against him. It purred, even as the pain worsened.  _ Mine _ , Red said. 

_ It hurts _ . He channeled his panic and fear down to her.  _ I can’t take anymore of this. _

He imagined a pair of round eyes blinking up at him. Their pupil was goat-like.  _ Mine? _

_ Yours _ , he agreed.  _ But you have to stop fighting. _

The Red Lion paused.  _ Not yet _ , she said, and the world around him vanished. 

Shiro sat on his bed. He’d buried his face in his hands, and his breathing hitched and rattled. His shoulders shook. Keith stared down at him. His jaw slackened as he took in the dark hair and strong face. There was no smell to breathe in, though he ached to cling to Shiro and find that familiar, comforting musk.Was it real? Did it matter? He reached out to touch Shiro’s shoulder. He expected his hand to pass through or for the dream to shatter.

It landed on Shiro’s warm shoulder. Shiro jerked his head up. His eyes widened. “ _ Keith _ ?” Shiro breathed. Shiro didn’t move, as though afraid it would frighten Keith. “How--?”

It had to be a dream of his own, Keith thought. He couldn’t stop the impulse to speak. “I don’t have much time,” he said, though he didn’t know if any of it was real. “I don’t know what you’ve seen in transmissions, but I’m alive.” His human hand tightened on Shiro’s shoulder. “I’m on Gal. I can’t leave yet. But I’m working my way to it.” 

Shiro grabbed on to his hand, as though frightened he’d vanish. “I don’t know if you’re real,” Sihro said. “How are you doing this? Can you do it again?”

“I don’t know,” Keith said. He didn’t want to make promises. Those were easy to break. He breathed in and ignored the hitch in his chest. Snot and tears threatened to turn his voice to something ugly. He didn’t want that to be part of Shiro’s memory, if this was even real. “Don’t come, okay? Don’t come to Gal. Don’t go near Zarkon.”

“If we want Voltron, we need you.” Shiro’s dark eyes were glassy. Shiro tried to blink away the tears. “How are you going to get out? Have they hurt you?”

Guilt welled up. The others probably feared he’d been tortured and starved. Shiro looked him over, his gaze lingering on Keith’s limbs. The bottom of his stomach fell out. Shiro worried Keith had been amputated too. Anger-- fruitless and sour-- boiled his blood. None of it directed itself to Shiro, yet it didn’t touch the Galra either. It focused on his situation, as though nobody he knew truly deserved the blame.

He couldn’t tell Shiro the truth. Shiro couldn’t know he’d been turned into a Galra, or that he received the treatment he did as a  _ notable _ . Keith spoke, slow and deliberate. “They need me to lure you guys here.” He clenched his human hands into tight fists. “Don’t take the bait. Whatever happens, I’ll be fine. If I can’t make it out, I’ll make sure the Red Lion can.”

Shiro stared at him. “That’s not reassuring, Keith--”

“You realize what you’re asking of me?” Shiro was gone. The room was cold and white. The other Paladins were arranged around a diamond table. Her Paladin armor fit tightly over her body, except for the slots where her two sets of wings folded. “A Syf does not  _ give _ .”

The Black Paladin looked at her through soft blue eyes. She made a helpless gesture. “Then what remains of the Syf will die in the next attack. Once your people are gone, the invasions will turn to the Galra. I’m sure your pride will protect them from the Outsiders.”

The Green Paladin stirred. Her stubby nose crinkled as she spoke in soft, accented Altean. “My people will fight,” she said. “But they will fight as your people did, Red, and they will die like your people.”

Blue nodded. His dark skin carried colourful markings, as was his heritage as an Altean. “Altea can’t provide more aid without compromising its own defenses. There are still internal threats at work.”

“Even now? Yellow demanded. A large, burly man, his dark fur bristled at the thought. “Traitorous scum. Gal will help you purge them when this ends.”

“It won’t end,” Black said, “until Voltron’s future is secured.” Every other Paladin went silent. “The Syf have lost. They may not survive the next wave. The Galran ferocity and the brilliance of the Alteans have not saved them. We have tried armadas whose sizes are unmatched in history. A dozen ‘final’ bombs have been designed and used. Entire systems have been destroyed. We have burned the Syf’s home to the ground, only to find the infestation has spread through the garden’s roots. We have a choice. We can continue to destroy the systems between us and the Outsiders, or we can give our lives to make Voltron more than a weapon. It will become a defender for this universe, and every soul that lives inside it.”

Red grit her sharp teeth. Her claws were dulled by the gauntlets of her armor. “...This isn’t even an honorable death.”

“Should it be?” Black asked.

Red shook her head. “It should be,” she hissed. “You ask for a living death. Our spirits will shamble along, fuel for machines. I will no longer exist. Only the Red Lion will.”

Blue laughed, soft and haggard. “We became Paladins knowing that we could lose our lives at any moment. Our value was in how fast we could pilot, or our tactical minds. That has changed. Our lives-- our quintessence, as Green calls it-- is what makes us valuable. We will make the Lions fast enough to counter the Outsiders. Did you not vow to do whatever necessary to protect your people when you took on the mantle, Red?”

Red slumped. But the fire in her belly raged. “This will buy us time. Nothing more. This war of attrition cannot last. They will come, and come, and come again. Voltron will defend, but the hearts of our peoples will wither as the Outsiders will win, planet by planet. If we want to finish this--”

“No,” Black said. Red’s mouth snapped shut. “Going  _ to _ the Outsiders has been done. Doing it with Voltron will be no different. All we can hope for is that our descendants will find a solution where we could not.”

Red’s claws in his skin released. Keith blinked. The dark ceiling looked like empty space. He tried to breathe through the agony in his body. Every limb quivered as waves of electric pain filled every tendon and muscle. Why had she shown him those things? Who were the Outsiders? The pain grabbed his mind and shook. His thoughts scattered.

“Red,” he gasped. “You have to--”

She wasn’t there. Not as she had been. He felt the bond still, but the Voice dominated. It dominated and reached for the foundation of his bond with the Red Lion. Its tendrils hooked at the bond’s edges and tried to pry it out. The Red Lion held, but the pain turned his vision black.

_ Stop _ , he thought, sending the message to the Voice. She paused, her tendrils wrapped around the Lion’s bond.  _ You’re here. It’s all you. Just you. She won’t come back. _ Could the Voice understand a lie?

The Voice’s grip loosened on the bond.  _ You are mine _ , she said.  _ Only mine.  _

_ Only yours _ , he promised. The pain faded to a background ache. He breathed as the world spun and the Voice wrapped around him like a noose. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update is July 22nd, Atlantic! In the meantime, find me at the-wenzel.tumblr.com!


	8. Chapter 8

The pain didn’t vanish. It lingered like smog over him. The Voice purred over Hyladra’s bond and inside his heart. Unlike the Red Lion, whose purr came out low and warm, the Voice crackled and spat, like a broken radio. “You all right?” Hyladra whispered to him as he hobbled into the living room. The servants around them stared.

“I’m fine,” Keith said. He kept his back straight as he settled onto the couch. “Just fatigue.” It was, in a way. What he felt came as an aftermath. He breathed, deep and slow. It eased the ache in his muscles and tendons. “Is there any food?”

There was lots of food. An entire trolley of food-- stews, meats, fruits, and the occasional pastry. Keith took as much as he could. In the not-so-private private space of his rooms, he ate his fill. It helped the pain. The energy he gained helped the forced relaxation. 

He stared out the window as the shadows turned long. Shadows played with his mind. Animals from strange planets peered in from the corner of his eyes. A galaxy of stars filled the window, the darkness a relief compared to the constant searing sun. Insects crawled around him. A long, winged insect landed on his arm and bumbled up through the fur. Keith focused on breathing. 

Were these the Lion’s memories? Or were they from the Syf? Was there a difference anymore?

He couldn’t ask in the Voice’s presence. Whatever these shadow-memories were, he endured them. Whenever he blinked, he remembered Shiro’s stunned gaze. Evening came, though he only knew it when Hyladra said it. “We should check for an invitation,” she said to Gryva. She stood and straightened her clothes. “The Emperor enjoys the Prince’s company, after all.”

Keith picked apart a pastry as he waited. The Syf’s memory played over his like a video stuck on loop, though he refused to acknowledge it. When Gryva and Hyladra came back, they were grinning at each other. “An invitation, my Prince,” Gryva said as she performed a wawu. The invitation she gave him was an azure blue envelope, with sandy-brown paper and beautiful red ink.

The writing on the page  _ throbbed _ . Keith tried not to cringe back. It didn’t twist into anything he understood, but it reached out, as though the written tendrils wanted to pull him in. He wanted to throw it away. What remained of his self-control kept him from doing it. Instead, he held it out to Hyladra. She took it without comment. 

“He wishes for you to come to the dinner party,” she said. “And the afternoon meal tomorrow.”

Which was more important? He’d got the impression that afternoon meals were light due to Gal’s heat, while dinner was where they gorged. Either way, turning down any of the invitations again would open him up for criticism. “I’ll attend both,” Keith said, trying not to look at the amber snake that slithered around his feet. “I suppose I should stop eating, shouldn’t I?”

Hyladra laughed. “It would be wise.”

“How long do I have?” he asked. Keith stood, as though the floor wasn’t covered in flowers that grew and died and grew again in seconds. “I should prepare.”

Gryva glowed with approval. “We can make you proper for a dinner feast,” she said. “I… warn you, Prince, that it is different from what you’ve usually worn.”

Keith squinted at Gryva. “That is ominous. Should I worry?” A bird landed on a tree branch beside Gryva.

“No,” Gryva said. “I merely say it to warn you. What I know of your people has always been about your conservatism.”

Whatever you say, he thought. He knew next to nothing about the Blackmouths, beyond the bugs and vegetarianism. “I’ll wear and behave as the Palace requires.” That was all he could do, really.

Gryva nodded, satisfied. “Kiya,” she commanded. They stood up, at attention, a mass of autumn leaves falling from their lap. “This night belongs to you.”

This was not what he wanted. Hyladra grinned when she looked at him, and he knew he looked panicked. Kiya prowled toward him, their smile wide and mischievous. “I promise,” they said, “that you won’t regret this.”

Patience yielded focus, but he didn’t want to focus on the servants who hurried him to his room, or the debate over clothes, or the strange powders and oils they coated him in. The world had faded to the Palace’s reality, but it came stained in an oilslick of colours. Kiya focused on his hair-- too long after months without a cut, but what Kiya described as ‘perfect’ for what they wanted to do-- and Keith tried to not squirm as their claws picked and sorted through his hair.

“I want to dye it,” Kiya said. Keith stiffened. “Be calm, Caith. It would be temporary.”

Heida hissed. “Address him by his title!”

“No,” Kiya said. Gryva had left the room a time ago, so nobody could drag them up by the collar. “If you’ll excuse the presumption, of course,  _ Caith _ .”

Heida’s agonized moan almost drowned out his quiet laugh. “You have permission,” he said, and Kiya purred like an engine. Their claws lightly dragged over his scalp. Oils from his scalp mixed with the oils Kiya had dabbed onto the tips of their fingers. The oils prepped his hair for the paste Kiya layered into it to dye it. The paste smelled like the ocean, almost like seaweed. It conjured visions of the ocean that his mind replaced the Palace with. Keith grimaced when some of it splattered on the makeshift poncho around his shoulders. Each time droplets or chunks landed on the poncho, Heida scraped it up. 

“Be careful,” Heida would say. “It’s a blanket, and it stains!” Kiya hummed acknowledgement each time. They didn’t stop, though. Even when Keith sneezed from the salt smell, Kiya simply clutched to the paste-covered locks and waited it out.

Powders were rubbed into the pastes. When it came time to wash it all out, Kiya brought him to the bathroom’s small shower. They walked over a land of rock and lava. “Head only,” Kiya said briskly. “We don’t have time to give you a proper windbath.”

He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Streaks of black divided luminous gold, fiery red, and autumn-orange decorated his long, shoulder-length hair. Curls had been pressed into his hair with oils. When he returned to his seat, Kiya fussed over his hair with creams and powders. “It needs to be matte,” they said, “but with a gloss.”

“That makes no sense,” Heida muttered as she painted his nails the colours Kiya had dyed his hair. She blew on his index finger’s claw. “I take it no stars?”

“All stars,” Kiya said firmly. “Make him sparkle.”

_ Make him sparkle _ sounded as ominous as it could be. When they finished, he looked less like Keith or even Caith, and more like what he thought a Galran drag queen would look like. Kiya beamed at him when Heida helped him stand. She thought his legs asleep, but in reality, all he could see was darkness and a mirror. His hair, dyed in chunks, had been pulled into a loose bun with strands loose, framing his face. 

The clothes they put him in were… odd. Uncomfortable. They were loose but with significant portions missing. It bared his stomach to the world, while his arms were uncovered. The clothes were wrapped around his legs tightly; they were a daring red, streaked by gold. Gryva rested a sleeveless red robe over his body. His shoes were simple slippers, barring the bright gold colour.

A sprig of some flowering tree branch was tucked into his bun. “An elhorn branch for an elhorn flower,” Gryva said, looking pleased as could be. The flowers were small and clustered, all the colour of soft yellow. 

Keith smiled, as though he knew what that meant, as though Gryva’s face didn’t keep changing to something reptilian and long and then back to something Galran.. “Thank you, Gryva,” he murmured. “Hyladra, are you ready?” He refused to acknowledge the illusions. They’d pass, he told himself. 

Hyladra still wore the uniform of a Hani. Someone had spruced up her hair and clothes. A strange shimmer rested on her fur. “I will be there for you, my Prince, though I can’t dine beside you.”

“So long as they feed you,” Keith said. He took a tentative step in his new getup; the swamp around him didn’t soak his clothes. None of it felt like him. It was as though he’d been transported into another person in another world. “How long until the party starts?”

“An hour,” Gryva said, “but the Emperor prefers people to be early.” 

The dinner took place in a series of cavernous rooms. The first room held a reception of little edibles on tables, chairs, and a series of guards who investigated every arrival. The Palace preferred reds, browns, and vivid purples, and the party continued the theme. Strange metal trees crafted from gold and bronze were arranged throughout the room; sometimes his mind dared to make them rustle in a wind whose origin he couldn’t trace. The shadows they cast were eerie, though Keith found himself mesmerized by them. 

The guards took his invitation and one of the servants ushered him in. Hyladra followed several steps behind. “Prince Caith,” the servant said and performed a wawu. “The Emperor is pleased that you’ve decided to attend. As it is the ninth day of the Raging Winds, the wilds have been brought into the Palace. As a prince, he trusts that you will conquer them in your every movement.”

Keith had no idea what that meant until they reached the second room. He assumed it was another delusion until Hyladra gasped. Sand covered the floor. Strange animals waited in cages. The smaller ones roamed the room, their eyes darting from waiting notable to waiting notable. Food still remained, but they were on flattened stones and clay plates. The bronze and gold trees were larger and loomed. The high ceilings were painted swirls of blue-ish purple and red. 

Not everyone in the room was a Galra. Keith tried not to gape at the dozen or so races scattered throughout. He even saw someone who looked like an Altean, but that wasn’t possible. Allura and Coran were the last ones of their race in the entire galaxy. Zarkon had exterminated the rest. That was one of his biggest crimes, wasn’t it?

Everyone wore the same extravagant outfits. Keith tried not to sigh in relief. At least he wouldn’t stand out. 

Except he did. People eyed him. A few whispered to one another. One even had the bravery to point. Keith sidled to the corner as Hyladra was led out of the room, as though he could hide like one of the animals in the room. A few were bru. One scaly, small pterodactyl-like creature flapped up to one of the trees. Keith imagined each were on the menu. One of the creatures took the chance to dart behind him.

The best word to describe it was  _ long _ . Feathery and sinewy, it had strange green eyes. A few of the notables leaned away from the creature, as though it were unclean, which made him think it existed not as a delusion but as a reality. It bolted through the sand with a  _ patta patta _ sound. Puffs of sand flew into the air whenever it turned. 

“What  _ is _ that?” Keith said, staring at the creature as it froze. Its eyes flicked back and forth, as though scanning for predators. But nobody here wanted to kill it. Most just wanted to keep it away.

The servant eyed the creature. “A dendin. They’re bug-eaters who sometimes plague cactus farms.”

The creature exploded into a flurry of action. It threw itself under a table as a servant passed, carrying a platter of food. The big green eyes stared out at the world from beneath the hollowed rock. 

“Nobody seems to like it too much.” Keith crouched down. The dendin scuttled back. “Do they carry disease or something?”

“Sometimes,” the servant said. “They’re also killers of cactus. They’ll burrow their way in through the bottom and drain the cactus of its water. A nest of dendin can put a farmer out of business in a week.”

“She doesn’t seem exactly  _ mean _ ,” Keith said. “Or he. It.” He stuck a hand out. “Do they bite?”

“Yes,” the servant said. She leaned in, as though ready to yank his hand back. “They prefer to be left alone by Galra.”

Keith paused. The green eyes were so big, he thought. The dendin chirp-purred. Was it an invitation or a threatening call? All Keith could see were the downy white feathers, though, and the way it cringed back whenever a Galra passed. He made a kissy noise at the creature.

It reared up. It had three sets of legs. Each foot had a wide-splayed hand that ended in five rounded fingers. It undulated as its legs waved. It chirp-purred again.

Keith didn’t reach out. He made another kissy noise and kept his hands to himself. People moved around behind him, but he ignored it. “You’re pretty,” he told the dendin. “There’s no need to be afraid.”

It undulated again, though it didn’t make a noise. It had a long, dragonish snout with spindly whiskers that were fleshy. The whiskers twitched, as though testing the room’s breeze. “Prince,” the servant said, her sugar-sweet customer service voice strained. 

“It’s okay,” he told her. He held out his hand a few inches, far from the creature but a distance from himself so it wouldn’t have to come too close. The dizziness of the Lion’s memories faded the more he focused on the dendin. “Aren’t you hungry?”

The dendin scuttled side to side. It fell on its front, though it didn’t look any less suspicious. A long anteater-like tongue darted out of its mouth. Keith glanced over his shoulder the servant. “Can you bring me a dish of water? I think it’s thirsty.”

The servant stared at him. “If you wish,” she said finally. She left him to making kissy noises and talking softly to the dendin. 

It didn’t flinch at the kissy noises, though it didn’t come closer. It watched him, its head cocked to the side. “I’m not here to hurt you,” he told it, and it trilled a chirp in reply. “Are you from the wild?” He hoped it wasn’t. Taking a wild animal captive would only serve to make it anxious and isolate it from the group. It sounded like dendin lived in warrens. Did this one have babies? What about a mate or parents? 

The dendin chirped. Keith sighed. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said. “Even if they see you as a pest, you belong with your family.” His skin crawled. Was he projecting on the dendin? He wouldn’t be shocked if he was. Shiro’s shattered expression tore at his heart. “You look scared here. Would you like to leave?”

“Prince,” the servant said. Keith jumped. She sounded embarrassed. “I have the water.”

“Thank you,” he said, as though he hadn’t been baring his soul to the Galran equivalent of a rat. He took the dish and placed it into the sand.  Then he waited for the servant to pull back, as though she wasn’t watching him.

“It’s fresh,” he told the dendin. It reached out with its long neck and its longer tongue and took an audible  _ slurp _ . Keith couldn’t hide a grin. He offered a hand for it to sniff, though he still kept his distance.

The dendin eyed the hand, as though contemplating whether or not to bite it. When the dish’s water had all been drunk, it leaned further out. The soft tongue tapped against his palm pads. It tickled; it pulled his mind from the visions of tall, white cliffs and an azure ocean below. The dendin shook its body, the feathers puffing out. Keith refused to move his hand. It rested its chin in his palm. A low chirping purr rattled in the dendin’s throat.

“It  _ likes _ you,” the servant said, appalled. 

Keith didn’t move. “Should it not?” he asked. 

He watched her shadow shake its head. “Dendin are prey. They don’t bond with Galra. They don’t even like us!”

“Well,” Keith said. He scratched the dendin’s chin with an index finger. It froze, but he didn’t do anything else, so it relaxed into his hand. “This one likes me. Don’t you?” It chirped. Keith didn’t know if it was a boy, girl, neither, or both, but it needed a name, so ‘it’ became Rime. Its white feathers were too snowy for anything else. “When does the dinner start?”

“Three minutes ago,” the servant said ruefully. 

Rime’s dozing head kept him from leaping to his feet. “Oh. Uh.” He tapped an index finger on its chin. Rime’s eyes snapped open to scowl at him. “I have to go,” he murmured to the creature. How strong would the illusions be without it? He picked up the empty dish with his other hand. The soft feathers tickled his hand as he pulled away. Rime scuttled after his hand, desperate to keep the perch, but Keith stood, and it froze. He didn’t put his back to the creature: instead, he backed up a few steps before he turned around. The servant took the dish. Rime chirped angrily as she placed it out of its reach. 

“Follow me, Prince Caith,” the servant said primly, back in her element. She led him toward a side door that’d been closed off by a shining green-etched door-- or what he’d seen as a door. 

The angry chirping intensified. Keith glanced over his shoulder just as Rime shot after him, their whiskers furiously outstretched and looking for obstacles. It barrelled through a wandering servant’s legs and almost tripped the Galra. Keith stood there, frozen, as the dendin reached him. It didn’t stop: one of its feet clapped against his outer robe, and it  _ stuck _ . More than that, it began to climb up his clothes, as though there were little hooks to the fingers.

“Prince Caith!” the servant cried out, as though Rime posed any sort of threat to him.

Keith stared as the creature reached his waist. “What are you  _ doing _ ,” he asked Rime, as though it could answer. It chirped and let out a low, guttural croak, like the fattest bullfrog that had ever lived. “You can’t come with me.” He paused. “Can it?” He looked at the servant, who gaped at him.

“It can’t,” she said. Rime didn’t even look at her. It skittered up his back, to his shoulder, around his hair. “It’s going to eat the elhorn--”

Jaws snapped around one of the blossoms. Keith jumped at how close they were to his ears. “ _ Rime _ ,” he said, as though the creature would even know its name. Rime buzzed against his shoulder, a strange, warped purr of fluttering feathers. 

“Prince--”

Keith reached up to touch the Rime. It buzzed and fluttered what he realized were weak wings. It couldn’t really fly-- the wings were far too small-- but it could likely glide. The jaws snapped again, and Keith withdrew his hand. “I’m not going to fight it,” he said. “That’ll make me look more the fool.” Rime snuffled, and the sea of red that had been flooding the room receded.

The servant deflated. “It’s improper.”

“I will overcome that with manners,” he said, “and grace.” He motioned to the door. “Let’s hurry to the dinner. I’m late already, and I have a strange companion.” Zarkon probably hated people who were late. What would he think of Rime too?

The side door-- which turned out not to exist, as the servant led him straight through it-- led to an obsidian-lined corridor. The lights that hung from the sides were smoky candles that created an oppressive heat. Rime buzzed happily as he walked from the room that’d trapped it. 

Through the corridor, the route twisted around. When they came to the next door, they were a hundred meters into a new room, Keith thought. He thought about thanking the servant. She either wanted to spare him the embarrassment of slipping in late or-- worse-- she was going to humiliate him for it. He suspected the former, though. 

The end’s gold door reflected the candles’ lights. The colours twisted and turned around each other, like spilled paint. The servant knocked on the door four times. It slid open, into the wall. Keith forced himself not to gape as she led him into the dining hall.

There were tables for hundreds. They were polygonal shapes of varying sides; the shapes stretched on enough to seat dozens. Made from a blackened stone, a smooth glass encased them from stains and dents. Vermilion floors sparkled beneath, while the royal purple walls were painted in Galran designs. The ceiling personified the Voice’s golden light. There were no chandeliers or candles. The ceiling acted as a mass of light that shone like the sun.

“This way,” the servant said, as though any of this was normal. Keith followed as the notables seated in the hall chatted, laughed, and made a show of how wonderful a time they were having. He kept to the path the servant used exactly: all he could see on the ground was a river of small rocks “The Emperor has requested that you be seated close to him.”

Rime buzzed again. He reached up to stroke its side. It quieted, though it pressed closer, as though nervous about the Galra and foreign dignitaries that packed the seats. People began to stare and peer at them as the servant brought him closer and closer to the main hexagonal table whose middle had a large, wine-coloured throne. It was deceptively simple from afar. Carved from stone, it had been polished and smoothed; when Keith got closer, he saw mirror-like patches that reflected the royal purple walls. It was like they’d been trapped beneath the stone’s thin surface, like smoke. Was it really like that, or was it the Red Lion’s work?

Keith’s seat was to the left side of Zarkon’s throne. The other four diners were a mix of familiar faces and strangers. One was an umber-skinned Altean man with yellow skin markings below his light green eyes. Another, a multi-legged creature with a fat torso and an extended neck that hung out over the table, watched Keith. Or Keith  _ thought _ it watched him. Its eyestalks were multitude, and some weren’t even facing Keith. A few tracked Keith’s movement as he took his seat beside the Altean and Zarkon’s throne. Across from him, a haggard, drawn Kymin prayed.

He couldn’t say anything. Kymin might not even know it was him yet. But concern and worry plagued him. What had the Sorrowsingers done? Were Kymin’s prayers real? He couldn’t discard those thoughts as his eyes strayed to the man beside Kymin.

The tusk-toothed Galra was familiar. He’d seen the man at Central Command. His name was Prorock? Porock? He’d been mentioned at the rain-watching party. Keith gave the burly man a considerate nod. The man couldn’t stop staring at his neck-- at Rime. 

“If you’ll excuse me, Prince Caith,” Tusk-tooth said. “Is that… a dendin?”

Rime buzzed. Keith nodded and shrugged. “It became attached, and I have no interest in struggling with it. I apologize if it causes offense.” Not that he’d do anything to fix it. Rime pressed a dry, warm nose into the side of his neck. It snuffled. Its little sneeze tickled his skin. Keith almost bit his tongue to keep from smiling. The river vanished to the vermilion surface he’d seen at first.

Tusk-tooth eyed Rime. “I am not a man to be offended,” he said. “I was simply… surprised.”

Keith pet Rime. The Altean beside him leaned away, as though Keith was tainted by poison. “Then I apologize for the surprise.” He looked over at the Altean who met his eyes. “I’ll try to keep the creature under control.”

“Appreciated,” the man murmured. “Though I trust any creature of the Palace to behave. But I should introduce myself, as we’ll be companions.” The Altean gave a half-bow in his seat and offered a hand. Keith reached out. The Altean took hold of his hand and pressed their palms together before the man withdrew. “My name is Shayan.”

He looked like an Altean. He spoke with an accent like Allura and Coran’s. But how was an Altean at the Palace? Why? Keith had thought them all dead, except for Allura and Coran. Shayan sat the table, oblivious to the impossibility of his existence. 

“A pleasure,” Keith said. His ears twitched as he thought, so he discarded his worry for the interim. How Allura would react to Alteans at the Palace, let alone in a fine banquet?

Shayan smiled, thin-lipped. “I don’t believe I’ve ever met a Blackmouth.” Shayan cocked his head to the side. Short black hair had been cropped around his pointed ears. “The Empire so rarely deals with your kind. Is it true that the Voice brought you here?”

“Agents of her,” Keith said. “A Druid visited on a mission. They weren’t warmly received, but we spoke. Things became… clearer, in their presence. I must admit something in turn: I have never met an Altean. Are all as handsome as you?”

Shayan’s emerald eyes brightened. “A kind thing to say. I am aware that my people look strange to yours.” He reached up and tapped his cheek. “Bare skin, strange ears, markings-- remnants of another time, truly. I would have come as a Galra, but felt it inappropriate. I’m sure Commander Prorok would agree.”

Tusk-tooth-- Prorok-- grimaced. “Altean shapeshifting is a strange business,” he said, and that was all the answer Shayan really needed. 

How strange would it be to defend Shayan’s honour? Probably too strange, he decided, even if he felt like he was betraying Voltron after seeing Shiro only hours ago. He went with neutrality. “It’s an intriguing skill,” he said, “though I can understand some of the distaste.” He looked over at Kymin, who still prayed, and the strangest alien he’d yet seen. “And here I am, talking away when there are other guests.”

Kymin’s eyes snapped open. They were an intense gold, far stronger than they’d ever been at Central Command. Kymin breathed, heavy and sharp. “Prince Caith,” he said, as though something strained his lungs and throat. “I am Kymin of the Yexin. Your love of the Voice shines.”

Keith stared. That wasn’t Kymin. There was nothing ‘Kymin’ about the person who sat across from him. The man’s shaky voice accompanied quivering hands. He behaved like a man begging for his life as the executioner’s axe hovered above his neck.

“Thank you,” he said. He tried to remove all the confusion from his voice. “Coming to the Voice has been a life-changing experience.” He nodded at Kymin. “Your kind of faith is what I aspire to.”

“Will you start to groom each other?” honked the strange alien. Keith turned to look at the eyestalked creature. It spoke through a vertical oval filled with shark-like teeth.

Shayan sighed, the sound pained. “Keyka, please.”

Half the dozen eyestalks swivelled to loom over Shayan. “Animals groom each other when happy with one another. While you have shed your fur, the Galra have not. They have tongues, don’t they?”

Keith didn’t know what Keyka’s race was, or what they’d descended from. Politeness kept him from asking, just as politeness kept him from being rude about what Keyka said. “We do,” Keith said. “Though we don’t groom one another. A pleasure to meet you, Keyka.” A nod was safe, he thought. 

Keyka released a slow moan as its eyestalks tilted down as one. “Prince Caith. You are his lover, is that correct?”

“ _ Keyka _ ,” Shayan wheezed. 

Keith’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?” Kymin muttered something in another language. 

Keyka blinked. Their trunk shuddered. On the red skin, white blossomed. “Was I not supposed to say that?”

“No,” Shayan said. “It was… impolite. Please, forgive him, Prince Caith. The Yalfet do not understand the norms among most other races.”

Keith tried to relax. People were gossiping, even among foreign dignitaries. Had Shayan told Keyka? The Altean behaved like Keyka’s words reflected on him as well. “It’s fine,” he said. “Keyka, such things are simple gossip. There is nothing such as that. The Emperor cares for me as he cares for all his subjects, and he knows that I am unaccustomed to the Palace’s ways, much like yourself.”

The white on Keyka faded to pink and then back to red. “Good,” it said. “I would not want to hurt my people.”

It was a strange thing to say. How would engaging in gossip hurt their people? Zarkon had never struck Keith as someone to kill over silly gossip. Did Keyka worry that it’d simply make Zarkon more hostile to the things Keyka wanted to argue for? 

What were those things?

Unease poisoned the room’s atmosphere. Prorok filled the silence. “Your system,” he said. Keith looked up from the dishes and cups in front of him. “It’s beside the Raker System, yes?”

Keyka drooped. their eyestalks, their limbs, and their trunk. “...It is.”

What was in the Raker System? What had happened? Keith could only sit there, prim and proper, and not ask a single question. Prorok didn’t ask anything else. Keith struggled not to beg him to. Just like with the Red Lion’s memories, he felt like people told him so much, yet he understood so very little. “Shayan,” Keith said. “I hope you’re enjoying the Palace.” Please tell me something,  _ anything _ new, he thought.

Shayan beamed at him. It looked cartoonish. “I come from Ayax,” he said. “Its cold has left me ill-prepared for Gal’s heat, but the luxury of the Palace soothes all wounds.” He winked, his thick black lashes striking against his skin. “The First Minister believed my talents could serve the Emperor and the Alteans he cares for under his rule. The Emperor has agreed with her sentiments.” Shayan laughed, gentle and warm. “It was quite flattering to hear.”

Had the Alteans forgiven Zarkon? Possibly. It’d been ten thousand years. It’d be like a Scot hating someone Italian for what’d happened during the Roman Empire’s days. Altea’s destruction was more extreme, by all measures, but the current-day Alteans had had thousands of years to absorb Zarkon’s propaganda and experience whatever purges the man unleashed on their dissent. Even if Shayan hated Zarkon, he’d never breathe a word of it at the Palace anyway.

“You’re a very charming man,” he said and regretted the words. If people thought him Zarkon’s lover, any flirtations-- or things that could be  _ mistaken _ for flirtations-- could hurt Shayan’s standing. “I’m sure the Emperor appreciates your efforts for the Empire.”

Shayan’s smooth smile would have fooled Keith if he hadn’t known the Alteans’ situation. Which, if he was fair, he didn’t. Not really. How many were left? Where was Ayax? Once again, asking would mean betraying his vulnerability. The Blackmouths would know the Alteans still lived. There’d be no excuse for Caith’s confusion. 

All the thoughts and plots were interrupted when walls rumbled. Keith snapped around in his chair in time to see part of the wall sliding into itself. From the dark shadows, Zarkon marched out, a bored, almost grim look on his face. “Rise!” Prorok called out. Everyone stood, even Keyka. Four limbs steadied its heavy trunk.

Zarkon wore loose, purplish-black pants that cinched at the waist. His shirt of vermilion had streaks of the same purplish-black, as though paint had been splattered on it. Heavy reddish-brown chains decorated in rubies and garnet were strewn along his arms and around his neck. He’d eschewed a cloak, a strange consideration from a man who otherwise seemed to live in them. Zarkon took his throne, which pulsed under his weight. The throne darkened, though Keith suspected that was simply an illusion. 

“Sit,” Zarkon said briskly. People hurried back to their seats. Hundreds watched Zarkon adjust his table placement-- a fork was moved to the side, a glass turned around, and a napkin taken and placed in his lap, as though he were a gentleman and not an exalted warlord. “I welcome Shayan of Ayax to this table, as well as Keyka of the Yalfet, his guest. I also bid welcome to Prince Caith of the Blackmouths.” Zarkon hadn’t smiled at Shayan or Keyka, but he turned in his seat to share a warm expression with Keith. “It is a pleasure to have you at my table.”

No one whispered or murmured as the food was brought out in carts. Servants tended to Zarkon’s table first. A tureen of soup was placed between Keith and Shayan; it smelled of root vegetables and something ironish. A thick, heavy cake filled with berries went in front of Keyka, who leaned forward with their trunk to snuffle at the plate. A large, roasted animal that looked like a hava was hauled off the cart by two servants and placed in the centre of the table. Vegetables and nuts surrounded the still-whole creature.

Dozens of dishes were piled on to the table. If it’d been wood, it would have creaked. Keith’s sensitive Galran nose found itself under assault. He tried not to sneeze as Shayan began to fill a bowl with a creamy yellow soup. It smelled savory, like mushrooms, he thought. Keith contented himself by collecting hunks of bread. 

“Do you wish for a piece of hava?” Zarkon asked.

Keith blinked as everyone at the table began to look at him. “Yes?”

Zarkon took a knife and fork and began to carve up the hava. “Do you prefer the dark or light meat?” Zarkon asked, as though this was normal, as though this wasn’t feeding the gossip, as though Keith hadn’t tried to murder Zarkon so many months ago. 

Dark meat meant a stronger taste. If he didn’t like the taste of hava, he’d have to struggle through each bite. Yet he knew he needed iron. Since coming to the Palace, he’d lived off a diet of nuts, bread, and fruit. He didn’t know the dietary requirements of being a Galra, but he didn’t doubt he lacked many of them. 

“Dark, please,” Keith said, and then he had to watch as Zarkon served him a piece, served himself, and then put down the implements. Everyone else would have to carve up the hava on their own.

Zarkon seemed content to pick apart his own hunk of dark meat. He wrapped the shredded strips around his fork and dipped them into a sauce before he ate. Keith took a larger piece of the hava and took a bite. It tasted like fatty duck with a salty taste to it. It wasn’t repulsive, but his next bite was smaller.

Rime pressed against his neck and buzzed. Zarkon stopped mid-dip of his hava. “What is that?” Zarkon said. His eyes narrowed. Rime buzzed again, either hungry or bored.

“It’s a dendin.” Keith picked up a halved, pink fruit with a white inside and black seeds, and offered it to Rime, as though it were completely normal. “It took a liking to me, and I wasn’t in the mood to fight it.” Rime worked at the insides with furious gusto, as though it hadn’t ever eaten before. Keith assumed the fruit was a cactus fruit of some sort-- it reminded him of dragon fruit. Either way, Rime seemed to know what the fruit was; it carefully stayed away from the fruit’s flesh, preferring the creamy interior. 

Zarkon eyed Rime. “It certainly seems content.” Rime let out a loud snuffle as it shoved its face into a corner of the fruit. “So long as it minds its manners, it is welcome at the table.”

“A kind ruler,” Shayan murmured. All eyes turned to him. Shayan’s smile offered charm and warmth to everyone who looked. “Even the smallest creatures are embraced, so long as they adapt. Many other lesser rulers would have struck the creature down for interrupting their supper.”

Keith almost called it base flattery, but there was something else to Shayan’s words. Keith leaned back in his seat, allowing Zarkon to fully see Shayan. Kymin spoke no prayers. Prorok continued to cut up his meat, though his eyes were glued to Shayan. Keith examined Prorok’s expression, but he couldn’t read anything. He didn’t know the man well enough. 

“They would be lesser for many reasons,” Zarkon said. Those outside their table were hushed. Few were brave enough to watch, though. “Including that. What warrior is threatened by a rodent?”

“Not threatened,” Shayan said in the same soft tone.  _ I’m not a threat _ , he radiated.  _ I am your ally and friend, and merely wish to give you compliments _ . “They simply see no need to feed such a creature, or entertain its presence. Their lives are the sword-- not the hearth’s kindness or the fairness of the courts.”

Out of the corner of Keith’s eye, Zarkon’s expression turned from faint confusion to sudden boredom. “Sometimes the sword’s demands supersede the kindest hearts or the most just minds. While some creatures can be tended to, not all should be. If I were to have a kralick at the door, what sense would it make to open it to let the gentle, bumbling hava in?”

A strange, high groan released itself in the hall. It took him a moment to find the source: Keyka’s eyestalks shivered as it struggled to hold on to its chair. “Emperor,” it burbled.

“Hush,” Shayan said. “You’re disturbing the meal.” Were the words panicked? They carried an urgency in tone that he hadn’t seen from Shayan.

Zarkon dipped his hava into the sauce again. Keith ladled himself some soup. Kymin stared at the ceiling, as though in a trance. Prorok sawed at a loaf of hard bread. Shayan crumbled nuts into his soup. Nobody spoke to Keyka as it shuddered and twitched. One pair of its arms struggled to pull off a hunk of bread. Its sharkish teeth chattered, the sound earning a ferocious buzz from Rime. More Galran dragon fruit calmed the dendin.

“Keyka,” Shayan said. Keith braced himself for another scolding to the poor creature, but Shayan’s words were gentle. “Your people study planetary lifecycles quite ardently, do they not?”

Keyka’s eyestalks straightened. “We are studying how to create planets.” It rumbled. “From building the core, to encasing it in rock, and then cultivating life. We have test projects that we wish to show the Emperor.”

Zarkon chewed his mouthful as his brow furrowed. “How does the life take to their new environment?”

“As though they were born to it,” Shayan said. 

Zarkon’s eyes were glued to Keyka. “Let your guest speak, Shayan.”

“They thrive,” Keyka said. “It requires synthesizing the correct components for each plant and animal, and scientists must design proper ecosystems, but while work intensive, it functions.”

Keith tried to imagine the scale of work. While rock and the like could be harvested from asteroid fields, finding the right kind of water, deposits of minute minerals, and creating the suns and moons and whatever else the planet needed… The undertaking would take far effort more than simply terraforming a planet. Why would they bother to make a new planet?

“Are they fruitful or barren?” Zarkon asked, as though that hadn’t been answered. 

Keyka stiffened. Shayan interjected. “The results aren’t complete yet,” he said. “The Yalfet have only just finished the second planet. Time is required to test for whether it has borne fruit. Time, and Druids.”

Zarkon shook his head. The jewellery that had been layered over his body chimed with the movement. Their coppery material glimmered strangely in the light. “Even the dullest creature can sense quintessence.” He frowned, as though he didn’t like his words. “Either the Yalfet have noticed it or it does not exist. I will also say, Shayan, that I do not appreciate my supper being interrupted, particularly with new company.”

Shayan glanced at Keith, who tried not to shrink back at the sudden attention. “I apologize, Emperor--”

“The Yalfet can continue their experiments,” Zarkon said. His level voice carried no warmth. Keyka’s eyes widened. “Beside those of the Raker System.”

_ What happened to the Raker system? _ he wanted to ask. Keyka heaved out an agonized sound. Nobody commented on it. Shayan looked gutted. The dinner continued. Other dignitaries hastily returned to their meals. A few of the non-Galra looked particularly shaken.

“You look quite charming today,” Zarkon said as he looked at Keith.

Keith managed a smile as the world kept shifting beneath him. “Thank you,” he said. distracted by confusion and the sense that he’d missed so, so much in the flurry of illusions, stress, and double-talk. “I value your invitation, my Emperor.”

Zarkon puffed up a bit. If it’d been anyone else, it might have been cute. If it’d been Shiro, whose memory still lingered, he would have laughed. But it was Zarkon. Keith kept the smile pasted on and tried not to hate himself too much. 

When the meal finished, Rime dozed on his shoulder, fed and fat. Keyka had recovered slightly. It’d even devoured the partially carved hava whole. Shayan’s flattery had never truly died: it just became quieter. Little things about how grand the meals were, or how fine Zarkon’s jewellery was. Zarkon weathered it with little comment in return.

When the meal ended, it ended with a bell’s clang. Everyone set down their utensils. People began to stand. Each of them turned, performed a wawu, and then began to file out of the hall. Keith blinked and watched them leave. 

“After a feast,” Shayan murmured, “the court rests. I’m unsure of where the Emperor would like for you to be--”

“Caith.” Shayan pulled away, going with the crowd beside Keyka. Zarkon still sat at the table. “I believe you’ve been well-introduced to the others. However, the mood is… poor for an actual reception. I do not wish to send you to your rooms, but I have little choice.”

“I understand,” Keith said, even though he really didn’t. The Yalfet could build planets, but they didn’t have true life. Which was… quintessence? Humanoid life developing? The Voice fed on people. Did Zarkon want the planets to create life that could be given to the Voice? What did that mean for the Raker System? 

The possibility was there. Where did quintessence come from? Sapient life? All life? Could it come from an uninhabited planet? How would they get the quintessence out on such a large scale? All the draining he’d seen had come from the connection people had to the Voice. That he knew of. What did he know about quintessence, though?

Zarkon touched his sprig of elhorn. He released a long strand of hair, and Keith knew that’d cause more gossip. Zarkon smiled as he left Keith. Hyladra met him at the door. She tried to shield him from stares, but she was only one woman. “Is that a  _ dendin _ ?” someone asked as he passed. 

Hyladra echoed the question when they were away from the party. “Why is there a dendin on your shoulder?” She frowned. “And why are you bringing it back to your rooms?”

“Because it hasn’t left yet,” he said. Rime buzzed sleepily in his ear. “Its name is Rime.”

Hyladra went quiet as they walked back. “It fits,” she decided just as they reached the apartment. “You look quite tired, and I suspect the servants will want to set things up for Rime’s residency.”

_ Go to bed _ went unsaid. Did she know the tone of the dinner? Or was she just being considerate? He searched the bond and found only concern. “Sleep would be good,” he said. He reached up and pet Rime’s head. Wrapped partly around his neck, it had fallen into a deep slumber. Its little body rose and fell as it let out a faint snore each time.

The door to his rooms shivered, like it was made of something flesh and blood. It reminded him of Keyka’s shudders and groans. When the door opened, he walked into a jungle of ice and black trees. It looked like a painting, he thought. His thin shoes left small tracks over the heavy snow. He looked up. The starry sky had three moons. People walked from tree to tree, carrying clothes and dishes about from unseen tables to unknown places. 

He heard, in the back of his mind, the roar of a Lion. When he looked down at his feet, he saw the armoured boots of the Red Paladin. Gryva stopped in front of him, a smile on her face. Her feet sunk into the snow as she gave him a wawu. 

“You look pleased,” she said, though the same could be said for her as she eyed the elhorn branch in his hair. 

Keith found himself distracted by the wind blowing through the wintery forest. “It was a pleasant night,” he lied. “The Emperor was happy to have me, and I was pleased to join the court.” He staged a yawn and tried not to wince as bitter-cold air filled his mouth. “I should sleep, Ms. Gryva. There are affairs tomorrow to care for.”

Gryva nodded. “Of course, my Prince.” She moved to the side, and motioned to where his room presumably was. “Heida, Kiya, assist him. Sleep well, and may the Voice guide you to golden dreams.”

He trusted in Hyladra and the others to lead him to the door and open it. He couldn’t see it, nor could he see his bed or chairs. Hyladra led him through the maze of unseen objects. Kiya put their hands on his shoulders and sat him on what looked-- to him-- like a rock.

They took the elhorn branch and wiped at his fur, removing powders and oils. Hyladra gathered the refuse, throwing it into non-existence. No one spoke as they worked. When they finished, they left one by one. Hyladra stroked Rime along the back, smiled, and murmured her good night.

It left Keith in the wilderness. Faint pain tugged at his senses, likely from the Voice. She knew the Lion had left something behind. Had the Red Lion understood what he needed? He stumbled to his feet and staggered along the snowy ground, arms outstretched and searching for obstacles. His memory of the room let him avoid the larger things, like his bed, but it was difficult to situate where the walls were, or tables.

Rime stirred when he thumped against the bathroom door. It chirped lazily as he found the handle and walked back into the Palace. The dark room had dim lights. Keith turned the light’s knob, and the place brightened. Rime chirped again. Keith pet Rime as he hobbled to the scale. It took effort to flip it over. Inside, the folder still waited. The kralick mark had dust over it.

He opened it with shaking hands. The words inside swam in his vision. The swirls and ticks and slashing lines were opaque and alien. They were nothing he recognized as human. A winter wind cut through his thin robe. The lines stilled, as though frozen.

He saw now what they meant. Charts, graphs, and numbers covered the pages. He didn’t read the words: they poured into his mind as though someone whispered it to him. Quintessence shipments abounded. Entire armadas carried them. He’d seen the quintessence operations before he’d been taken. He’d wondered where the vials came from, and he wondered it still. Where was it coming from?

The documents answered that.  _ The Raker System was harvested _ , the general wrote.  _ We faced resistance, but those who submitted have been transported to their new colony. During transport, we encountered interesting debris from one of the planets. It has been isolated for presentation at a later date. _

_ The Eyis System will be collected in the coming two weeks. There has been gossip in outposts that the Yalfet are preparing for total resistance. Communications to Ayax have been intercepted, and they have found sympathy among the Alteans. The Yalfet have no military prowess, however, so under your command and with your assent, the extraction can commence. _

He would wear a green ribbon the next day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update is July 31st, Atlantic! Find me at the-wenzel.tumblr.com in the meantime. <3


	9. Chapter 9

“ _ Green _ ?” Gryva asked, appalled. “My Prince, I know you wish to…” Her hands floundered around, as though she didn’t know what he was trying to accomplish. “...make a statement? But a green ribbon isn’t proper. It’s a scandal.”

“It’s not that bad,” Kiya said between chewing dried berries. 

Heida sighed, rubbing her temples. “It’s far from good, Kiya.”

Keith looked at Hyladra. She seemed uneasy. He raised a brow and she spoke. “I don’t know how the Blackmouths treat green,” she said, because the lie needed to be continued at all moments. “However, on Gal, it’s the colour of… intercourse.” 

Keith’s eyes widened. “Uh--”

“Not an invitation,” Hyladra added quickly. “While worn by some who trade in sex, it is more of an alluring symbol. Something quiet, a bit teasing, and flirty. If you were to wear it in the city’s alleys, most would think you open for a certain type of business. In the Palace, it is a declaration that you’re… interested, shall we say, in someone you know.”

And people would think Zarkon. Why had Marmora told him to wear something green, of all things? Sure, it’d get people to talk, but maybe he didn’t want them to talk about his potential sex life with a genocidal tortoise. Keith tried to even his heart rate with a slow breath. Rime took it as an invitation to buzz. Strangely, it calmed him. Amid a sea of auroral colours, frantic servants, and his own body that he was less and less sure he was connected to, a buzzing pseudo-dragon offered the kindest presence.

“I understand your concerns,” he said. “It’s not a decision I’m making lightly. However, the Emperor’s overtures have been left unattended for too long.” He pet Rime’s snout with his forefinger. His nerves almost turned his voice shaky. “He has shown interest numerous times. You have all seen evidence of it. What is a bigger scandal: declaring my intentions, or leaving the Emperor to wait for my own vanity?”

Gryva didn’t look satisfied. She shook her head and folded her hands behind her back. “Such a move would assert your dominance over the relationship. It would hurt the Emperor’s standing. The last similar scandal involved a Minister, and she was made a fool of for the next year. I can only imagine the papers if you wore a green ribbon for the Emperor.”

“She has a very strong point,” Hyladra said. “There is causing foolish scandals that fade by the end of the week, and then there is making the Emperor seem weak and tamed by a foreign lover. He rules over billions of lives. His military dominates a thousands of galaxies. To maintain such a hold, he must never seem weak.”

“Besides,” Kiya said, “you didn’t even know what a green ribbon meant until we told you. Why are you so set on wearing one?”

Lie, lie, lie, he thought. “It means something very different among my people. You all know that my people disdain meat, correct?” Only Kiya bothered to nod. “Green means… life. It means kindness. It is gentle, warm, and friendly. It’s a common colour.” He hoped it was, at least. “It happens to be one of my favourites. I would wear it several times a week before I came here.” He sighed. “I understand that, by following the Voice, I have embraced new ways. But what kind of Galra would I be if I abandoned my heritage completely?”

“He has a point,” Kiya said. 

Gryva shook her head. “It isn’t about your old heritage.” She stopped, as though reflecting on how cruel those words sounded. Keith averted his gaze from the others in the room. “I apologize, Prince Caith.” She sighed. “I didn’t mean it like that. I more meant that holding to the Blackmouths’ ways would be a detriment to your new life.”

“There could be a compromise,” Heida said. “He could be dressed in traditional Blackmouth clothes, and the green ribbon would be taken as part of it.” She frowned. “I’m not a fan of the idea, but it would care for everyone’s concerns.”

Gryva didn’t look fully convinced. “It would lessen the gossip, yes.”

Kiya perked up. “I could craft a proper outfit,” they said. “It would take a bit of research, but it would be the most charming thing. With the Prince’s input, of course.”

Keith forced a smile. “I can certainly supervise.” He’d seen a few pictures of Blackmouths before he’d been unleashed on the Palace. It proved to be a largely ineffective preparation. Kiya and Heida both used a tablet to find better and better examples of Blackmouth clothing.

“Do princes wear this?” Kiya asked. THey motioned to the tablet’s screen.

Heida squinted. “It looks royal,” she said. She turned to look at Keith. “Prince Caith, what do you think?”

The last picture he’d seen of Blackmouth royals was two centuries old. “The tufts should be bigger,” he said. “Less white as well. Black is to represent the calm of our new world, even if I know now it was fake.”

The clothes in the tablet’s picture were far more complex than Gal’s. They were heavy, black, and furred around the collars and edges. A velveteen cloak hung from the solemn woman’s shoulders. Her dark fur almost blended with the clothes. 

“They look so  _ grim _ in every picture,” Kiya marvelled. “No offense meant, my Prince. But all of them look like they have been invited to a vigil.”

“It’s cold on Halion,” Keith said. “If it wasn’t snowing, it was hail. The animals on Gal are so much  _ smaller _ than Halion’s.” He frowned. “Barring the kralick. Between the large animals and the cold weather, wearing leathers and furs was natural.” He motioned to the nearby window, open and inviting in a slow desert breeze. “Here, you’d likely die.” 

Kiya squinted at the tablet. “That might be a problem if we go traditional with Blackmouth tastes.” They tapped at the screen. “We can adapt the wool cloth for linen. The furs will be harder-- do we have light faux furs?”

“None I’d wear outside,” Heida said. “If it were a simple venture to a party in the lower floors, it would be bearable.” Her lips pursed. “How well do you endure the heat, Caith?”

He’d lived in the desert for a year. Before that, years with no A/C in Toronto. He could endure heat. “Well enough,” he said, which turned out to be good enough. 

They dressed him in a stretchy, thin black cloth. HIs pants were slim, almost tight if not for the stretch. They looked, he thought, similar to a turtleneck and a pair of trousers. Over top of the turtleneck, a coat wrap the colour of navy blue rested, made from something warm and soft. Faux black fur, puffy and voluminous, edged a heavy animal skin coat. Simple hooks lined the front, though he was instructed to leave them be. 

“You’ll overheat enough already,” Gryva said grimly. “Fetch the boots.”

The boots went up to his knees. Made from a hard, thick leather, complex laces looped back and around and forward again. It took him a while to tie the left boot, while others dove in to deal with the right. They were tied tight against his calves, and felt odd against his skin. With the digitigrade legs of the Galra, the shoes were hard to pull on, even with the generous amount of foot pad that touched the ground. The boots had to be carefully tied so that they didn’t trip the wearer, nor did they rest in such a way that they ground against the thinly furred joints, creating welts. 

“I can’t imagine how annoying it is to wear such long boots,” Kiya mused.

Heida’s fingers wove the laces around his hock. “It’s better than losing a leg to frostbite, I’d wager.” She looked up at Keith. “How long does it take for a cobbler to make these?”

“Longer than it does one here,” Keith said, “and shorter than it does to make one of the military’s outfits for the Empire. They’re usually carefully fitted.” Or he thought so, at least. He’d hope that someone put care into crafting the shoes, considering their difficult construction. The Blackmouths, he’d been told, didn’t have the numbers for large factories either. 

When he stood, Hyladra had to steady him. In comparison to the harder boots of a military outfit, they weren’t bad. But after weeks outside of long boots, they felt like weights around his feet. “The ribbon?” he asked when he found his balance. His hair still carried the colours Kiya had given it yesterday. He squinted through the sun’s light. The forest clearing they waited in would have worsened the heat he endured, if it was real.

Gryva had the ribbon. She’d chosen one as slim as possible, as though if it was a single finger in width, nobody would notice the dark green colour. The plan worked well: it almost looked black. “For you, my Prince,” Gryva said.

“That looks black,” Keith said, an eyebrow raised. “Gryva, I understand your reluctance, but effort has already been put into this plan, and I won’t be swayed away from the idea.”

In the end, he had to sort through the case of ribbons for the proper and most noticeable shade of green. Electric and silky, Kiya took it from his hands and tied his hair into a high bun. “It looks good,” they said, as Gryva collapsed into a chair, expression scandalized and distressed by turns. 

“Thank you,” Keith said, though he turned to look at Gryva. “I promise this will be the last time, if only for the sake of your heart.” He adjusted his fluffy collar. “How soon until the afternoon meal?”

“An hour,” Hyladra said. “You may want to remove the coat for now. I don’t think the Emperor would enjoy a corpse at his lunch.”

Keith shrugged in the coat. “It’s not terrible.”

“You’re panting already,” Kiya noted. 

Keith stopped mid-pant. He blinked. “Oh.” He unhooked the cloak’s clasp and shed the coat on to the couch. “...A glass of water would probably help.” He frowned.” Preferably plain water.” They spared him Mahadra Spring water. Plain, icy water quenched an almost permanent thirst. He sighed in relief, even as he panted. He kept his fingerpads angled up, away from cloth. Heat radiated from the skin. He reached over and touched the misting glass. It helped the fuzziness in his head, though he wished his delusions would summon a kind breeze to enjoy. 

When lunchtime came, his stomach grumbled and rumbled as he followed a servant like a duckling through the Palace halls. His full clothes had people gaping as he passed. His stride was more a march than anything else. The boots forced stiff movements.

They didn’t go to the same halls as the one last night. They went in the other direction, down a sloped corridor that had a few dozen Galra milling about. They parted to stare at him. None of them held invitations like Keith did, and only a handful had servants at their sides. Keith labelled them desperate hanger-ons. Was it unfair? Possibly. But so long as they kept their distance, what would it matter? A few pointed at Rime, who’d managed to dig its way into the collar. Its feathers pressed against the back of his neck. Every time they fluttered, Keith had to stifle a laugh.

“Invitation?” one of the guards asked when he reached a white lattice-like door. 

Keith handed his clutched invitation over. The guard opened it to give it a cursory read. “Dian, lead him in. Hani, you understand the rules, right?”

Hyladra nodded. “I was given training,” she said briskly. She adjusted the cuffs of her uniform. She looked down her nose at the man, despite him being far taller. “My Prince.” She motioned to the opening doors. Other Galra who waited strained their necks to look at the inside.

From their new position, they could see the ribbon. To say it didn’t go unremarked on would be an understatement.  _ Oh  _ **_Voice_ ** , said a woman.  _ I can’t believe he’s wearing that _ , another whispered.  _ Do you think it’s for the Emperor?  _ “I hope not,” a man answered in what he probably thought was a whisper. Keith ignored them all.

The lunch took place in a grotto. Waterfalls lined the walls. Large leafy plants broke up the room into private areas. Buffet tables were placed end to end, plates and dishes available to anyone hungry. Notables breathed in tropical air as the faint strings of some unknown instrument flooded the area. Keith blinked. Was it real? With his delusions, the place could have been full of lava, and he’d never know. All he could do was follow the servant to a table as his passing summoned whisper after whisper. Someone gasped, loud and sharp; Keith glanced over his shoulder to a scandalized man with a dropped jaw. He shrugged at the man before he turned back to where the servant led him. 

They stopped beside a wall where fresh, crystalline water poured down its side, into a pond. Foliage of wide, blue leaves and blossoms as red as blood covered large sections of the pond. Keith smelled the plants, which was a good sign for them being real. The delusions had calmed greatly, but they always edged his vision. The moments where they took over flipped the world on its axis. 

“Would you like anything to eat?” Hyladra asked as he sat on the blackened wood chairs. 

Keith’s stomach rumbled. “Whatever you think I’d like,” he said. He didn’t know what most dishes were called, nor the names of the meats or fruits. Rime stirred, as though it knew the word for food. “Pick up something for Rime as well, if you can? It hasn’t eaten today.” Its little stomach rumbled against his neck; it buried its face deeper into his fur collar, as though it could feast on anything in there. He reached back and scratched its back. The buzzing purr distracted Keith from his own hunger. 

Whispers filled the room like a breeze. Even the dividing walls couldn’t stop the spread of gossip. Everyone would know what he’d done by the end of the meal. He leaned back in his chair and let the sounds wash over him. After so long of causing a stir just by  _ existing _ , there was something sweet about freaking people out on his own. 

As he waited, he watched the water. It flowed from grates built into the wall. He imagined they cycled it-- they’d have to to make sure it didn’t stink, and he thought he saw fish inside the water, but who knew, really? Something blue fell from the grates, likely a leaf from one of the plants that’d got sucked into the pipe. It spilled down to the pond. Keith frowned. There was a single mark on what he now saw was a folded piece of paper. It looked like Marmora’s mask.

Keith reached down, as though investigating one of the bowling ball-sized flowers. He scooped up the paper in a free hand and tucked it into his coat pocket. The material felt like plastic in his hands. He guessed it was a protective coating to keep the messages intact through the water. 

He ached to read it. He didn’t know if he still could, but he knew it had to be from Marmora, or one of their agents. They’d seen his green ribbon so fast that he wondered if Marmora themself was in the room. He eyed the grates. Maybe they were waiting in the control room for the waterfalls. Going to it, though, would be a mistake. He couldn’t just wander around as Caith.

Hyladra returned with a plate of fruits and nuts. “No breads,” she said. “You eat enough of that already.” She tapped a pile of nuts with a forefinger. “In the next plate, we’ll focus on meat.”

Keith found the Galran dragon fruit and swiftly picked it apart for Rime. While the dendin preferred sleep, he still felt the rumbling stomach. “You’ll feel better if you eat,” he told the creature. He didn’t want to put the fruit on his collar, but Rime refused to move to see the fruit, even when it was close. Keith sighed, put the fruit down, and picked Rime up. The dendin didn’t bother squirming as he placed it on the table, though it gave him a sharp dirty look. Then it saw the fruit. Its green eyes brightened. It scuttled over to the fruit and dove into the sliced up inside. 

Hyladra shuddered. “Its eyes are so unsettling.” She moved her hands off the table, as though Rime would bite or spread disease on to them. 

Keith frowned. “Why?”

“They’re  _ green _ ,” Hyladra said. Keith raised an eyebrow and she sighed. “Galran blood is green, Caith. While the Blackmouths have changed their views on the substance, for us on Gal, it is a discomforting colour. It is the colour of passion, fury, and blood. Your dendin’s eyes have the look of bloodthirstiness and cruelty.”

Rime blinked at him with its second eyelids. Keith reached over and pet Rime’s withered wings. Rime fluttered them and returned to its fruit. “I think it’s cute,” he said, mildly aware that it would make him even stranger among the Galra. He would be like one of those humans on earth that looked at creepy bugs and gushed over their multitude of legs.

Zarkon didn’t come. Keith wondered why, but maybe Shayan and Keyka’s efforts hadn’t stopped. Maybe he was dealing with the Raker System shipments, or coming harvestings. The thought killed his appetite. The words he’d read still haunted him. The Galra killed entire systems for quintessence. From the Yalfets’ experimentation, it was for the quintessence inside the planets, and presumably, it was for the Voice. But why? Why feed the Voice’s hunger like that? He believed that the Galra still had some empathy. There had to be a reason for them to do such things. Did Hyladra know what the military did, or was it a secret? It’d be hard to keep it secret, yet he’d never heard people talk about the slaughter. 

Kymin joined them at his table. Dressed in bland beige robes, his hair shorn to a prickly layer, and all weapons gone, he barely looked like the person Keith had known on Central Command. Kymin bowed his head to Keith as he began to eat his meal of bread, water, and scattered nuts. It looked far from filling, but Kymin took nothing more when he finished. 

Keith sneaked glances at Kymin as he pet Rime. “How does the day treat you?” he asked. He didn’t expect a genuine answer. Kymin might not even know who he was. 

“As well as the Voice treats her supplicants,” Kymin said. His voice shook like reeds in the wind. His steady hands grasped his cup of water. “I wasn’t sure I’d see you again.”

He knew, then. Who’d told him? Likely Zarkon. Keith took a drink of a cherry-coloured juice. Rime slipped over from the now demolished fruit to lap at the ring of mist that the cup left behind. When he put the glass down, its long tongue moved to the glass itself. 

“I almost didn’t recognize you,” Keith admitted. “I was afraid for you when I saw the new guests to Central Command.” He pet Rime along the back. “You’re all right, aren’t you?” 

Kymin smiled thinly. “I am a vessel of the Voice. How else could I feel?” 

Keith couldn’t tell if it was a self-aware joke about the persona he wore, or a genuine feeling. He forced a smile. It was bad enough that they were talking about Keith’s life at Central Command. There was no need to question Kymin’s own survival. “You’re a true Galra,” Keith murmured. He prayed Kymin had embraced the disguise. “You should eat more.”

Kymin didn’t eat more. The light lunch ended with a note in Keith’s pocket and a rounder dendin than he’d had in the morning. He shed the clothes when he returned to his room and luxuriated in the sudden relief in heat it gave him. Rime huddled in his lap, its strange feet plucking at the pants’ cloth to make a good nest in. 

He spent the afternoon dozing. Supper he managed to bow out of, though he got to check the note in the bathroom. It took waiting until the delusions returned in full force-- in the ocean’s depths, surrounded by creatures that slithered in the dark, and a single light from a Lion’s eyes-- to understand even a bit of the note. 

_ We’ll come at evening. Wait for us. _

That worked. In the surprisingly few days he’d been at the Palace, he’d established himself as an early sleeper. Nobody reacted when he begged off for a sleep later in the day. Supper came in the form of a platter of cheese, fruits, and sliced meats that servants left on a table covered in a metal plate cover. He ate on the balcony as he waited. 

“Do you have any kefa nuts?” Marmora asked when the sun was gone and most notables were off at dinner. Keith flinched, waking up a dozing Rime. “Your servants are caring for you well.” The air in front of Keith shivered, and Marmora and their disk appeared. Marmora hopped off, landing lightly on the balcony. The disk hovered before it lurched into a quick folding sequence. It went from something barely big enough for two people, to something that Marmora grabbed and hooked on their back. 

Keith shrugged, as though he hadn’t lost a year off his life. Rime buzzed angrily in his lap. Marmora’s masked face lowered from Keith’s eyes to Rime. “Is that--?” Marmora said, amazement in their voice.

“It’s a dendin, yes.” Keith picked up a slice of fruit and gave it to Rime who snapped it up. Then he offered the platter to Marmora. “Take a handful. I can’t eat this all.”

“No kefa nuts,” Marmora muttered, though they took a handful of other things. 

Keith put the latter to the side. “I didn’t know you could visit so easily.” Why hadn’t Marmora done this for the first time? The answer seemed simple: Meeting at the Palace would have made a potential escape harder for Marmora if Keith told Zarkon about the contact. Now, with the knowledge that Keith had agreed and stolen the documents, the risk was less. Not gone, but less.

Marmora shrugged. “Do not expect me to come here often. It is dangerous for both of us. You have the file?”

“I do,” Keith said. He picked it up from the table. He waved it slightly, as though taunting Marmora. “Tell me, Marmora. How many people do you have who could do anything like this?”

He didn’t see the frown, but he felt it. “My organization’s skills are in other areas. We were able to contact you without anyone noticing, weren’t we?” 

“Easy when you have the ability to go invisible.” Keith traced the kralick on the folder. “I’ve agreed to this, though. I want information, Marmora, and I want in on what you’re planning.”

Marmora reached out. “Let me see the documents first. Then we can discuss this further.” Marmora could take the documents and bolt. Keith didn’t hesitate, though. Hesitating would make Marmora wary, and potentially flee. So he handed it over. Marmora opened the folder and flicked through the contents. Keith wondered if their mask had a recording feature. As the pages crinkled, he tried to distract himself by petting Rime. 

“Is it good?” he asked after a minute. Rime nuzzled his palm; its teeth brushed against his pads, threatening a good chomp, but Rime was too lazy and comfortable to bother. 

Marmora didn’t reply. They closed the folder and slipped it into their robe. “It’s what we wanted. What information do you want in return, Caith?”

“Voltron,” Keith said. “I have no access to news here. Not without scrutiny. Tell me, what have they been doing?”

“Skirmishes along the border,” Marmora said. “Little engagements-- they tend to run when robeasts appear. They know that, without the Red Lion, they risk defeat and death with every encounter. There’ve been rumours that the Paladins have infiltrated Galran computer systems, but nobody has been able to verify them for certain.”

Keith traced Rime’s wings. “And the Red Paladin?”

“Voltron seems to believe he’s still in Galran custody. Common rumour say he’s alive, if only because no soldiers have been presented to the Red Lion.” Marmora shook their head. “We have cause to believe he’s been brought into hiding. The chaos at Central Command concealed his transport after he was attacked by the Clarion.”

“Possibly a colony, then? And what of the Lion?”

“A base somewhere in the Chajan Desert.” Marmora eyed Rime who kept squirming and rolling around, trying to find a perfect, comfy place to snooze. “It would take far more resources to get an exact location. There are a few bases we have surveyed, but the Emperor has clamped down on activity in most of the desert.”

Keith frowned. It was better than nothing. “Then I have two more questions. If I’ve earned them.” It wasn’t a question for a reason. “How are Druids chosen? I have found indications that average Galra may be able to wield quintessence.” If it was possible for Keith to use it in his Galran form, he could fix his condition himself. Even better, he could steal the Red Lion back and flee. He ignored the stab of regret the thought summoned. 

Marmora laughed. “Really? That is your question?” They considered something. “I suppose you haven’t been on Gal long. Druids are chosen by the Voice, as I’m sure you know, but the Druids’ talk of special powers is nonsense. My organization has access to records of past Druids. Whatever attracts the Voice’s attention, it is far from power levels. Some Druids have been weak as newborns, confined to only the simplest tasks. In the cases of Druid twins, power differences can be stark as the difference between water and land.”

Keith pursed his lips. “And what does that mean for the average Galra?”

“It means that many of them are stronger than a Druid,” Marmora said. Hope rose in Keith’s heart. “They are simply untrained and taught to ignore the powers underneath their skin. Do you ask this to learn the arts yourself? Or is there a Druid you are suspicious of?”

Volux would lie because they had to. Telling Keith there was a chance for him to wield quintessence would invite escape or poorly thought out personal experiments. “So the Voice allows Galra to manipulate quintessence.” He’d been told that before by Zarkon, before he’d joined the temple. “Yet those she chooses as her own vary in power. Why?”

Marmora radiated amusement. “Because she has nothing to do with giving us powers with quintessence.”

“Someone,” Keith said, “should tell everyone else that. Everyone I’ve spoken to has described her as the source of the Druids’ powers. She lets people use quintessence--”

“According to the brainwashed,” Marmora said, “and those who benefit the most from such a story. There are Galra, outside of the Voice’s power, that can use quintessence. I work beside a woman who can summon lightning from her fingertips. She hasn’t communed with the Voice in decades.”

“Then what does she do? There has to be a purpose to her existence. Why do so many of the Galra worship her? Why did Zar--the Emperor invite her on to Gal? It sparked a  _ war _ .”

“A war we won,” Marmora murmured. “So it’s hardly like inviting the Voice troubled us.”

“Altea was  _ destroyed _ .” Keith glared up at Marmora. “Billions died. This wasn’t a decision the Emperor would make likely.”

“Defensive of a man you’re already betrayed, aren’t you?” Marmora leaned against the balcony railing. “It pains me to say, but we don’t know what happened. The story told in schools is that the Voice allowed us the ability to use quintessence, and that such abilities threatened Altea’s dominance in the universe. Subsequently, it was inevitable that the Galran Empire and the Kingdom of Altea would struggle against each other. The unfortunate part is that most of history before Zarkon’s ascension is lost-- deliberately destroyed so that no one such as my organization can determine what the truth is.”

So what did Zarkon have to hide? “How well is the harvesting of other systems known?” Keith ignored Rime chewing on his fingers. The sharp teeth threatened to break skin.

Marmora shook their head. “The subject is confused by the Empire’s propaganda. Those who lose their home planets and systems know that it is to feed the Empire and Voice. The Galra in the military believe the same. The average Galra, however, think it is a rare event. The migrations of other species are far from their doorsteps, and their media rarely touches on any but the most heartbreaking disasters.”

Keith could imagine the disasters: mass migration, mass resettlement, the great emotional devastation of losing everything you knew, and the haunting knowledge that you had given up on those who fought back. “The Yalfet are next. Do you think they stand a chance?”

“Do you?” Marmora asked.

Keith averted his eyes. “...I want in on what you’re planning.”

Marmora laughed softly. “You don’t even know what my organization wants.”

“I know you want to stop this.” Rime’s whiskers dug into his fur, searching for something. “And there are two ways to do that.” 

Marmora cocked their head to the side. “What ways are those?”

“Reveal what the Voice does to the common Galra,” Keith said, “and kill the Emperor. Either would grind the Empire to a halt.” It hurt to say. It shouldn’t. Killing Zarkon had always been the goal before he was captured. Zarkon acted as the head of the snake. Yet now, even mentioning killing-- _ murdering _ \--Zarkon left his heart clenching.

Marmora took their time replying. “There are more ways than that,” Marmora said. “I appreciate your willingness to kill the man you’ve been romancing, however. Though I wonder what game you’re playing, Prince Caith. You came to Gal only days ago. Already, after converting to the Voice’s ways, you speak about ruining her and the lives of those around you. Tell me, Prince, did your elders send you to the Empire to destroy it? If so, they chose well.”

Keith frowned. He couldn’t disagree without putting the truth at risk. He didn’t know what Marmora truly thought of Voltron. It wouldn’t be shocking if Marmora’s organization just wanted to replace Zarkon with their own regime. The Clarion were enemies of Zarkon  _ and _ Voltron, after all. “I have my own agenda,” Keith admitted. “I will say that our interests align, Marmora. I hate this system, and I want to stop people’s death and suffering.”

Marmora sighed. “I will figure you out, Caith. I hope that neither of us will be angry when I do. If you wish to put your lot in with ours, there is something I can ask for.”

Rime wrapped its legs around his wrist. It tried to savage his fingers; he tapped it on the nose when it dove in for a bite. An angry buzz greeted him. “Tell me.”

“We need the Emperor distracted for tomorrow night. My organization hopes to collect information on a facility in one of the restricted areas of Gal.” Keith forced himself not to perk up. Was Marmora looking for the Red Lion? “If the Emperor is…  _ unavailable _ , emergency procedures will remain uninitiated if something were to go wrong.”

Zarkon would never question his presence. The idea that Keith had teamed up with a pseudo-revolutionary group while being monitored as much as he was would be laughable. “You haven’t told me how you plan to stop all of this.”

“Distract the Emperor,” Marmora said, “and I’ll tell you.”

That wasn’t compelling. He told Marmora that; they laughed, which Rime jumped at. He tried to sooth the dendin with whispers and light touches. It squirmed to its feet, scampered up his front, and buried itself into the area behind his neck. Keith sighed. “Marmora, I understand your organization thrives on secrecy. But this involves me putting my life on the line. Even a vague idea would help.”

“Not yet,” Marmora said. “You need to risk more before I share this plan. It has been our goal since inception. To lose our chance because an unknown begged for knowledge would be a disgrace I could never live down.” Marmora reached out with a hand, though. “You are clever. You know the value of this. Whoever you truly are, whatever your motivations, if you are genuine, you won’t ask for something I cannot give.”

He accepted it. His brain spent the night buzzing away, desperate for an answer. What did Marmora’s organization want? Rime wriggled in and out of the bed’s sheets. It bounced along the edge of the pillows and buzzed for food whenever hungry. “Go to sleep,” he told it, even though sleep refused to come for him too. 

What had he signed up for? Marmora operated with secrecy, sure, but what did the secrecy mean? What did they want to do to the Empire? If they turned out to be a more discreet Clarion, he’d never be able to explain his choice to those like Hyladra. Even the other Paladins, Coran, and Allura would not understand why he trusted Marmora. They wouldn’t understand the keen desperation to get out, to do  _ something _ that wasn’t waiting around, eating, or engaging in  _ whatever _ he had with Zarkon.

Rime woke him up from a light doze. It chittered and buzzed, its eyes’ slight glow haunting. “Go away,” he told it, exhausted. Rime dove on to one of his large ears. He jerked away as its jaws snapped down on where his ear had been. “What the fuck, Rime--”

Its neck inflated. The pillows and sheets muffled the low, rumbling croak it issued. Keith reached over to poke it in the nose. Rime exploded in a series of annoyed buzzes and chirps. “You’re hungry, I know, I know.” Keith hauled himself up as Rime circled him like a very small wolf. “Probably thirsty too.” He whistled a quick tune. The automatic lights flicked on. He glanced at the litterbox a servant had set up. Rime had used it in the night-- good news for his bed and him. 

In the room’s silence, the world left him to his thoughts. He felt like he’d mounted a kelpie and now, half-way down to the lake’s bottom, wondered if he should have kept his hands to himself. Things happened-- quickly, too quickly, with little thought and less purpose. Keith now yanked at his hands, glued to the kelpie’s back, and tried to escape, only to find himself further stuck to the creature. 

Helping Marmora risked everything. His privileges, yes, but his allies, his own plans, and even his bond to the Red Lion. If any Galra discovered the Red Lion still whispered to him, every Druid would be brought in to seal off the bond. The illusions would be gone, as would the ever-fluctuating ability to read Galran. He’d be back to square one: desperately searching for a route of escape. 

He thought that as though he wasn’t terrified of escaping. The pillows cushioned him as he slumped against them. Central Command and the Galra he’d met had been his cage and wardens for so long, he barely remembered what life was like before them. Keith the Red Paladin had been hot-headed, brave, and closed-off. Keith the Galran Captive had become… colder, in a way. The cold barrier that shielded him was long gone, but now he dealt with people from behind a dozen masks. His emotions were molten, almost impossible to contain, and fuelled questionable decision after questionable decision. All his energy devoted itself to maintaining a strange disguise that changed every few weeks. He befriended people who he hated and even killed. He pretended to dislike those who were friends. At some point, his mind had got tangled in the chaos of all the games. 

What was left? A sense of unease and a fake smile for anyone who watched. Hyladra slept against the bond, warm and drowsy. He couldn’t even be honest with someone telepathically connected to him. The concept of honesty had grown so fuzzy and impractical, he was amazed he remembered the definition.

Keith the Red Paladin would never have infiltrated the Clarion, let alone managed to get the information he-- Zarkon-- wanted. He’d never have survived the Palace’s boredom or politics. The waits would have driven him mad, and his temper would have frayed until he broke character. Enduring Zarkon’s touches and flirtations would have been impossible. He’d have made him and Zarkon enemies, instead of the strange faux detente they had now. 

The detente’s days were numbered now. Despite the understanding that’d grown between him and Zarkon, the reality of the Voice had destroyed the fledgling trust Keith had in the man. He’d thought, foolishly, that there were places Zarkon would never go. Zarkon wouldn’t hurt the Galra, except that he had: all Galra had been murdered over time by his decision to shelter the Voice. Whatever reasons Zarkon had, none would be good enough to justify the slow deaths of his people. How many billions had died because of Zarkon? How many systems had been harvested to feed the Voice? How many peoples had been chased from their homes?

Why did he do this? That hurt the most to wonder. Keith didn’t know if there was a justification for what Zarkon had done. Each Galra who’d lived ever since the Voice’s arrival had been drained of decades from their lives. Keith tried to imagine a scenario that made sense and vindicated Zarkon. Maybe the Voice would eat the world if she wasn’t fed, or the Voice was the only way to reverse the heat death of the universe. Zarkon could be hiding the truth to prevent panic, or to keep people as willing sheep to the slaughterhouse that was the Empire. 

Yet how would no one know her purpose, then? Someone would notice heat death reversing. He didn’t know the science, but he knew one of the races he’d met as a Paladin would have talked about it. Or if it was about placating the Voice’s hunger so she didn’t devour the universe, wouldn’t Zarkon have told him-- or better, kept Keith from the Voice? That assumed Zarkon cared. Keith had… suspected, at least, that Zarkon considered him valuable. Valuable enough not to feed him to the Voice.

Evidently not, though. Keith stared at the darkening ceiling. The sun rose in the distance, and soon the servants would appear and Hyladra would be there, a constant haunting reminder that he was Prince Caith. She might notice the chaos that infected his mind. Telling her the truth would rouse disbelief and concern. Where was he getting this information, after all? And why was Keith entertaining it?

Despite Zarkon’s claim that the Voice meant no harm and brought only blessings, the Voice didn’t make the Galra stronger. It didn’t make them wiser. It didn’t give them the ability to wield quintessence, even if it made the Galras’ eyes quintessence-gold. It demanded vast quantities of life energy, to the point where it fed on its host population and forced Zarkon to gather more from other systems’ planets. The Voice had come from beyond the known universe-- it was something, Zarkon had told him months ago, that the Paladins had fought, and from what the Red Lion had shown him, the Paladins had been created to fight. 

Why, then, had Zarkon sacrificed his fellow Paladins, the Galra, the universe, and his very morality to give the Voice a home? 

Keith had no answers. All he could do was follow Marmora’s lead and hope there were answers at the end of the path. Whether from Marmora, Zarkon, or the Voice herself, Keith would know what festered in the Empire’s soul.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter! <3 Next one will be up on August 7th Atlantic time! Meanwhile, you can find me at the-wenzel.tumblr.com.


	10. Chapter 10

He got to sleep in that day. Gryva had taken one look at him and declared him sick. “Your eyes are dull,” she’d told him, “and your ears are sullen. I even think your nose is too wet.” Gryva fussed: she pulled a warm comforter over him, sent Heida away to fetch something called ‘beri broth’, and then tried to sooth Rime who croaked loudly at her. 

Keith ended up scooping up Rime and bringing it to his chest. “You’re okay,” he told it. He let his head fall back to the pillows. “I’m not sure I’m sick, though, Gryva.” He wanted to rest, but lying to Gryva struck him as a step too far.

Gryva shook her head. Her pointy ears flopped with the motion. “You never do when you’re sick at first,” she said. “It’ll come when you least expect it, and I won’t have you collapse at breakfast. The court already has enough to gossip about.” She frowned. “You didn’t keep the green ribbon, did you?”

Keith nodded at Kiya. “They had it last.”

Gryva turned to look at Kiya, who raised their hands in a full-body shrug. “It was sent to be cleaned with the rest of the clothes. Should I have thrown it out?”

“No,” Keith said.

“Yes,” Gryva cut in. “I never want to see it again. Throw out every shade of green in that cursed ribbon box.”

Keith kept his mouth shut. The vehemence from Gryva unsettled him. How much had he damaged his relationship with her by wearing the ribbon? Her own reputation depended on him, after all. She acted as the one in charge of his day, his staff, and his own well-being. 

Keith bit back a sigh. “We won’t be needing them anymore.” Gryva looked relieved. “I’ll rest up for now, but can you contact the Emperor for me, Gryva?”

Gryva stared and then shook her head. “And what will you need me to ask?” She sounded exhausted. 

She probably braced herself for more gossip and drama. “A simple request for a private talk--”

“Prince,” she said, voice strained. “That is… a difficult request. I understand that you have enjoyed the Emperor’s attention greatly, but I cannot simply call him up and rearrange his schedule.”

Keith blinked. Did he ask for too much? Zarkon had always been around and available. While the work of running an empire never ended, Zarkon seemed to enjoy Keith’s presence. On Central Command, things had been far busier, but at the Palace, Zarkon seemed to have an unending amount of free time and boredom. “A small note, then? If an invitation to dinner doesn’t come.” Keith doubted it wouldn’t. Invitations came every day, for lunch and dinner. 

Gryva nodded, though she seemed close to a sigh. “I will arrange things as I can. I promise to do my best, my Prince. In the meantime, you should rest.”

So he rested. Rime hated him sleeping. It leapt between pillows, buried between blankets, and nipped at toes and fingers. “You’re horrible,” he told it. It croaked from beneath a blanket as it pattered around. Whenever it peered out from the blankets and pillows, its green eyes glimmered.

Heida brought the broth and even a bit of the fruit Rime loved. The salty soup had little chunks of meat throughout it-- the meat tasted gamey and stringy. When Rime buzzed, he offered a few strands of the meat. Rime snuffled at the meat before it turned back to the fruit. The skin crackled when Rime’s teeth snapped into it. 

It took a half dozen more chomps before the creamy interior revealed itself. Keith helped as Rime’s tongue dug into the fruit’s insides. The fruit-- whatever it was called-- had a wrapping-like skin. The insides were tightly compounded into a solid mass. The exterior could be peeled off like the skin on garlic. Such an adaptation proved difficult for Rime to navigate, but simple for Keith. 

He choked down the broth until dregs remained. There was an unhealthy amount of fat-- whether from the meat, added butter, or some sort of Galran olive oil. It made sleeping hard. He felt oily and gross beneath his fur. Even a dust bath didn’t help. Rime danced around the floor as Keith rubbed deep into his fur, trying to collect the grime. It took two visits before he felt clean again. 

The only good thing of the morning was that Zarkon sent an invitation. Gryva brought it when she came to wake him; to her annoyance, she found him playing with Rime in the bed instead of resting. An examination of his nose reassured her that he had ‘improved’ in health. 

“Your eyes are brighter as well,” she said. “You’ll be pleased to know that the Emperor has invited you to a private meal.”

Keith pursed his lips. “So not at the giant hall from last time?”

“You won’t be on display, yes.” Gryva shook her head. “It is odd how much you dislike being watched, yet invite attention all the same. I think you would be much happier if you stopped courting the Emperor and then hurrying away with your tail between your legs.”

She wouldn’t speak like this to any other notable, but then Keith had invited this sort of talk. He made his awkwardness clear, he’d never scolded any of the servants, and he frequently let them control matters. He had his title, yes, and the Emperor’s--Zarkon’s--favour. It didn’t matter if he was otherwise floundering at the Palace, though. Did Keith mind? He found he did only in moments like this, where Gryva questioned his decisions. At some point, he’d become accountable to those meant to care for him, and he resented it as he had ulterior motives. It wasn’t a pretty realization to have. 

“You’re right,” Keith said. “Walking away now, though, would make things worse for me and difficult for the Emperor.”

Gryva sighed. “Unfortunately, yes. The green ribbon has written your fate in stone. The best we can do is minimize any resulting scandal. Which means no more strange clothes! You’ll be wearing an outfit assembled by myself.” She eyed Kiya. “I trust Kiya to, ah, groom your hair. Only the hair, Kiya.”

“Of course,” Kiya said, though their frown showed their feelings. “May I have Heida paint his claws?”

“No,” Gryva said instantly. “We are returning to a clean, gentle, and respectable image. No paints, no scandalous ribbons, and no strange additions that are brewing in your mind, Kiya.”

Under Gryva’s close watch, they dressed him in sandy brown clothes. Baggy trousers with a ropey belt, a turtleneck whose sleeves had been chopped off, and a white outer robe open in the front. “Give him a red scarf,” Gryva commanded as she looked him over. “...Heida, if you could, please paint his claws.” 

Kiya stifled a laugh. Heida looked miserable, stuck between the push and pull of Kiya and Gryva. “What colour, Ms. Gryva?”

“Orange,” she said. Kiya didn’t hide their scoff well. Gryva eyed Kiya before she returned to her seat to watch.

By the time he was done, Rime had taken to nipping his feet. Every time he scolded the dendin, it bounced away, under furniture, and then returned moments later when he got distracted by the tug of a brush in his hair or a fleck of nail polish getting on his fur. Kiya burst into laughter each time; Heida would always ask if Rime had broken skin, but it never did, despite its sharp fangs. 

The Sonata Palace was, Keith thought, misnamed. It was the Waiting Palace. Everything took forever to happen, despite being the supposed heart of the Empire. Central Command had always felt like a frantic buzzing hive, as though every Galra had something to do at all hours of the day. At the Palace, the only time people moved with a purpose was when Zarkon came. 

All of that meant that--when it came time to go to the dinner--hanger-ons moved like tortoises when Keith, Hyladra, and Gryva needed to pass. Some of the groupies eyed his invitation as though they were starving and it was the only piece of food left. 

“Back straight,” Hyladra muttered as they began to push past the crowds. Keith forced his spine up, though the instinct to hunch in on himself was strong. There were too many people and too many judging eyes for his comfort. At least they didn’t have Rime to stare at: it was back in his rooms, sleeing

“Why are they even here?” he whispered back, though he knew one of the spectators would catch his words.

Hyladra didn’t reply in words. The bond opened up, and images of hopeful eyes and crowds peering in at a small, private table filled the link. They hoped for the unlikely and wasted their time. If they didn’t have an invitation already, Keith thought, Zarkon was unlikely to send one just because one of his guests hadn’t made it. 

The halls of trophies that led to Zarkon’s private rooms were packed. Many were soldiers who looked bored out of their minds. He imagined they were guards in case of an attack, but any attack would be thwarted by Zarkon’s own strength, in all honesty. With the Black bayard, he could kill a hundred soldiers without breaking a sweat. The thoughts were uncomfortably fanboyish, even if they were true. 

Further and further, Gryva led them into the crowd. The sea of Galra seemed unending. Even those who weren’t fawning over Zarkon’s potential invitation were clustered around display cases, marvelling at the history of the Empire’s conquests. Any awe Keith had was long gone. How many of the trophies were from dead civilizations whose planets had been harvested for quintessence? How many of the races were confined to colonies, or had been destroyed in a fight for their lives?

Keith refused to look away from the trophies, even as he passed them. The halls to Zarkon’s rooms were a monument to his crimes. They were a graveyard. Keith wondered, then, if anything from Altea existed in the warren-like mausoleum. Even as guilt rose at the thought, he couldn’t help but know that Allura and Coran would cling to whatever pieces remained of their home. If he could bring it with him if--when--he escaped, it was the least he could do to start making up for his multitude of betrayals. 

Hyladra lightly touched his left hand as it swung back in his walk. Reassurance flooded through the bond. It tailed him into Zarkon’s rooms; Gryva and Hyladra were taken to be seated in another area of the apartments. When Keith peered down the hallway they were taken down, he saw other armed bodyguards, servants, and soldiers who were all seated at a table to eat. Platters of simple food layered the stone table. Hyladra gathered a series of shrimp-like creatures and began to pop off their shimmery shells with her claws.

“Prince Caith,” a servant said. He turned to the man in time to see his wawu. “The Emperor awaits you.”

The servant led him toward the patio. What did a private dinner mean to Zarkon? Would a few others be present, or would it just be him and Zarkon? There were plenty of bodyguards and such in the kitchen, so there had to be more people than him for the dinner, he thought. He hoped. Having Zarkon’s attention on him was exhausting. The man’s intensity rivalled that of a desert sun. 

There were two people at the table, other than Zarkon. Kymin wore his drab clothes, though he donned a hood now. Thace looked worn yet somehow better than he had on Central Command. He had the same uniform, but it looked new and his face’s lines were smoother. 

“Caith,” Zarkon said warmly. “Come in, though please do close the door. I think we are among friends here, and I have no desire to play games where others can hear.”

Keith slid it shut. “I’d ask if you invited Hyladra, but I know she’s in the kitchen.” He took his seat as wind rustled the garden’s canopy. The table had only Mahadra water, a few cups, and a little pitcher of some unknown ruby liquid. He hoped it was juice as he poured himself some.

“Hyladra knows that it’d be strange for her to visit the Emperor,” Thace said. He held his water like it was molten gold-- precious, but dangerous. “My presence can be explained as me reporting to the Emperor, and Kymin has come as an ascetic.” Something flickered in his voice at the word ‘ascetic’. Keith couldn’t tell what.

“It’s far from that,” Kymin said, though he didn’t deign to elaborate. 

Zarkon ignored the strange conversation. “Your clothes are much more, ah,  _ usual _ than it was the day before. What brought on the Blackmouth garb?” Zarkon’s eyes darted away, to look at the garden. “Or the appearance of green.”

Thace’s brows rose. “ _ Green _ ?” Kymin snorted into his drink. The surprising show of personality vanished into a stoic expression. Thace eyed Kymin before he turned back to Keith. “Did none of your servants warn you away from that?”

“I didn’t think it was that serious,” Keith said. “The idea that a single colour would be verboten is weird to me.” He shook his head. “I didn’t realize the full gravity until I was at breakfast and everyone reacted to the ribbon.”

Zarkon reached over and tapped Keith on the flat of his hand. “Keep in mind Gryva’s warnings next time. I gave her to you because she’s a clever and informed woman. While she is prone to personal theatrics, that doesn’t change her expertise.” He sighed. “At least you went out dressed as a Blackmouth. It will quell some of the worst gossip.”

“It’s the small things,” Keith said. He took a drink of his juice. It tasted similar to mango, though it burned slightly, like citrus. “Thace, you’re looking good.”

Thace’s lips pursed. Should Keith have not commented on his appearance? What Thace said didn’t help that suspicion. “...Thank you. Some time with my family has helped greatly.”

Was that time with Wrin? Or had Zarkon spirited the boy away for his crimes? Keith forced a smile. “I’m glad.” He sipped some of his juice. It had a strange kick of an aftertaste, though it didn’t taste of alcohol. “So.” He looked at Zarkon. “Is there a reason you’ve assembled almost everyone from Central Command?”

Zarkon smirked. “Can I not do you a favour without you questioning it? I assumed you’d be interested in speaking to those you’d bonded with on Central Command.” He gestured at Thace. “You even asked me about his fate!”

“I did,” Keith said, voice pained. “But I-- you know what? Forget it. Thace, I’m glad you’re alive and well. I hope Wrin is fine too.”

Zarkon mimed a scandalous gasp. “Do you think I’d kill him after agreeing to spare him?” Zarkon tsked. “He’s fine, somewhere off in one of the family’s cottages. Tell me, Thace, has there even been any scandal? I had his commanding officers sign his discharge papers in private.”

“The Emperor has been the very model of grace,” Thace said as he hid a smile with his glass. Keith relaxed when he noticed the expression. Thace, despite his history with Zarkon, trusted the situation. Maybe Keith could too. “For which I thank him and the Voice for. Wrin has caused enough trouble already, but to torment his family with his disgrace would be cruel.”

“And harmful to your career,” Kymin murmured. Thace shrugged, though he didn’t defend himself. Kymin leaned forward. “It is pleasing to hear that the Emperor values align with the Voice. Mercy for fellow Galra is important.”

Keith tried not to feel awkward. Did he count as a Galra? He lived in an alien form, but… It didn’t matter. He smiled at Kymin, as though the soldier had just remarked on the weather. “I wasn’t sure I’d see you again,” he said. “When I saw the Sorrowsingers, I was afraid for everyone.”

Kymin stiffened. “There was no reason to fear for me. I am a loyal soldier and believer in the Voice’s words.”

“That’s not quite what I meant--”

Kymin looked at him through brilliant yellow eyes. “I forgive your words as you were not born Galra. Others may not be so kind.”

He shouldn’t have brought it up in front of others. Maybe he shouldn’t have even mentioned it in front of Kymin. The edge to Kymin’s voice wavered and wobbled like someone performing a balancing act on a rotten log. Either Kymin had truly been destroyed to where he flinched at any suggestions of transgressions, or he believed that he was unsafe, even beside the Emperor who’d shown him great favour by inviting him. 

Keith bowed his head. “... I apologize. I meant no offense, but it seems I have greatly mis-stepped.” He poured Kymin more water, as though that would make up for what he’d said. “I know you are a loyal and fierce Galra. My wariness comes from, as you noted, not being born a Galra.” He still wasn’t a Galra, but there was no point in arguing that. “I fear that which I do not understand. The Sorrowsingers are one of those things. I hope to learn better from those around me.”

Kymin relaxed. Warmth entered his voice. “We can all lead you by example.” From where Kymin bowed his head, he couldn’t see Thace’s sour, unhappy look. Keith could, though. It seemed that Thace had no fears about hinting at not liking the Sorrowsingers. Why did Kymin cling to his fear, then? What had the Sorrowsingers found in his heart, and were they still watching him?

The conversation lapsed to a seemingly comfortable silence. Keith leaned back in his chair. The sunset’s lights dappled the patio’s lip. The foliage rustled and shook as chilly winds came from beyond the garden’s walls. Beams of light came down through the canopy; they splashed on to the stone walkways and dark soils. 

When the food was brought out, the Mahadra water was gone, and Keith’s juice largely depleted. One servant worked to refill the glasses while the other laid out plates filled with roasted almost-birds, strips of something starchy, and a pile of wilted berries. Zarkon’s attention transfixed itself on the berries. He had the manners to use a spoon. 

Thace stared at his plate, as though disbelieving of what waited on it. “Is that a frayr?”

“It is,” Zarkon said. “Wild caught.” He looked smug. “The berries are grown in the garden; likewise with the hajre roots.”

Thace tried to hide his amazement. “A truly luxurious meal, then.”

More silence ensued as everyone ate in varying degrees of politeness. Keith used utensils and refrained from mangling anything. Zarkon didn’t care: he even used his fingers while picking apart the bird’s bones and joints. Kymin picked at the food, his mannerisms painfully close to how Keith imagined the bird itself once ate. Thace didn’t bother with primness, but he wasn’t a savage like Zarkon.

To Keith’s own surprise, he found he loved the hajre root the best. It snapped under his jaw. It tasted like a sweet potato with an earthy aftertaste. It squeaked against his teeth as he chewed. The berries were almost candy-sweet. Even the sauce on the bird tasted like mountains of sugar had been added. Zarkon couldn’t have looked more pleased. 

“You have a thing for sweetness, don’t you?” Keith asked. He rubbed a chunk of hajre root on the chicken, sopping up some of the sauce.

Zarkon stopped mid-chew of his berries. He swallowed before speaking, at least. “It’s my preferred taste, yes.” 

“Sourness was popular on Central Command.” Keith cocked his head to the side. “I guess it’s a time thing? Flavour popularity and cuisine trends change every few years on Earth."

“Sweetness was quite popular when I was a soldier.” Zarkon eyed his frayr. “The sourness has appeared in the past decade. Chefs have fallen in love with foreign ingredients that taste… strange.”

Strange to Zarkon, at least. For Keith, all the food was foreign and strange. He missed burritos, burgers, and brisket. He put his utensils down, his appetite gone. Earth was light years away. The possibility that he’d never see Earth again was higher than he wanted to admit. “Do you eat gheron?” he asked, as though they’d ever taste like beef. There was a better reason to ask, though.

Zarkon blinked. “Sometimes,” he said. “They’re more valuable for their milk. Kymin could likely give you the details on the trade. Why do you ask?”

He didn’t meet Kymin’s eyes. “I’m wondering what they taste like.”

“Disturbing,” Kymin muttered. Thace nudged him with his leg.

Keith shook his head. “Gheron are like… space cows, right? They’re grazing mammals that are fat and make milk.”

“Serviceable as a basic description,” Thace said. “Are you after memories of Earth’s food?”

“Gheron don’t eat grass,” Kymin said. Keith tamped down on the excitement. He knew, still, what gheron were like. Kymin had taken the bait. “Insects--spiders, mostly--are their preferred food. But they are fat, yes. It creates a pleasant marbling of their meat, though it’s far better to keep them alive for milk and cheese. Eating gheron would be like eating silver.”

“If healthier,” Zarkon interjected. “I can order a gheron butchered for your interest, Keith, and we can feast on it next meal.”

It wouldn’t taste like a cow. Gheron looked nothing like cows--they had four legs, yes, but they were ombre, four-eyed, and anteater-like. Eating gheron meat would ruin his hindbrain’s belief that, somehow, gheron were just like cows. It didn’t matter if they were nothing alike in reality. Both made milk and both were raised on ranches.

“I think I’m good.” Keith took up his glass. His index finger traced little designs into the glass’ sweat. “This was delicious. Even better than the hall dinner because people aren’t watching.” He forced back a yawn. The sky had turned to a pitch black. Clouds covered the moons, but he hoped they came out soon.

“You’ll love the dessert, then,” Zarkon said. “I would have given you a proper six course meal, but such a meal would have you here all night. I will save it for when the Moonbreak Festival arrives.”

Keith’s brows furrowed. “Moonbreak Festival?”

Zarkon took a drink before speaking. “A celebration from the time of Great Heroes. When the moon’s rivals destroyed her, our three ancestors caught the pieces and held them in the sky. When the sun discovered what our ancestors had done, she gifted them with a lush planet-- our ancestors were fire, wind, and sand. From the ancestors, through the power of the moon and sun, the Galra came into being.”

And the Tuvani-- if he remembered Thace’s words right--came from the moon’s tears at her fate. That was secret, though, and so he said nothing about it aloud. “And the Moonbreak Festival celebrates the ancestors? Or is it solemn?”

“Celebration,” Zarkon said. “Galra have enough misery to endure.” 

Keith didn’t ask for detail. “What other traditions do you have for the festival?”

“Dancing,” Kymin offered.

Thace stopped mid-drink. “There are sports of strength.”

“And quite an amount of lavish meals,” Zarkon finished. “I enjoy the Druids’ conjuring of the moons the most, however. The elegance of their powers is difficult to put into words. High Druid Haggar enjoys summoning fire from the heart of Gal-- I hope to show you it in the coming weeks.”

Keith frowned. “Is the festival soon?”

Thace nodded. “Quite soon. If you were to leave the Palace--and I advise you strongly not to--you would find that every Galra is preparing their costumes for the three days of celebration.”

Keith perked up. “Costumes? Are they just fancy clothes, or are people going as actual things?”

“Both,” Zarkon said. “You’ll find many of those outside the Palace will dress as characters or silly costumes about concepts. At the Palace, however, it is far more preferred to dress from mythology or imitate the styles of past eras. One family of warlords came dressed as the nobility of my birth era. It was quite a delight to see.” He gave Kymin a sidelong look, and Keith wondered if it’d been Kymin’s family. “Every Galra wears a different costume for each of the three days. It is meant to imitate the changing nature of the deserts we came from. Mirages, I suppose, would be the best word for it.”

Keith’s lips twitched, even though he didn’t want them to. “How many actually care about that?”

“Very few,” Zarkon said and laughed. “It’s far more about the fun and the social aspect of concealing identity. More than a few notables have fallen in love with servants wearing masks. It’s traditional that couples who meet at the Moonbreak Festival marry however many years later on the date of the Tempest’s Gala.”

“And that is--?”

Zarkon grinned. “Another tradition, though far more reserved. It marks an ancient battle in the time of Great Heroes where they fought a rising storm god through whose veins flowed only malice and lightning. An unusual day for a wedding, but as the day is a victory for the Galra, most think its blessing evens out any lingering misfortune for meeting on a day when the moon was broken.”

Keith would have called the tradition weird if he hadn’t lived on Earth for nineteen years. A fat man came down chimneys to give presents to children he’d watched through the year. In the middle of winter, love was celebrated in the form of a naked, winged child and chocolates. And Halloween had never started as a  _ good _ festival. It came from ghosts and ghouls and a thin membrane between the world of the living and the world of the dead. The traditions Keith had grown up with were just as foolish, if not more, than the Galran ones.

Dessert came in a delight of whipped cream, ice cream, and nectar-caramel. Leaves decorated the edge of the bowl. Zarkon dipped them into the concoction and popped them into his mouth. Keith followed Thace’s lead and used a small fork. The leaves tasted bright and sharp, almost lime-like, while the dairy products had a sweet, goat-milk like taste, mixed with something far more fatty. 

By the time he finished, his belly was swollen and it took all his strength to sit straight. “That was an  _ incredible _ meal,” he wheezed out as he stared at his half-full bowl. “I don’t think I’ve ever eaten like that.”

Zarkon looked pleased. Keith didn’t know if he was charmed or repelled by that. What he knew about the Voice and Zarkon’s actions still followed him like a shadow. The energy to be angry, though, was all devoted to processing the amount of food he’d devoured. 

“A walk is always good for digestion,” Zarkon said. He placed his glass of water on the table. Strangely, as though commanded by some unearthly force, both Kymin and Thace stood and made their excuses. They filed into Zarkon’s halls, leaving Keith and Zarkon to share a discomforting silence. 

“That was not subtle,” Keith said. “I don’t think there are enough lanterns in the garden for a walk, though--”

Zarkon whistled, the sound husky. The garden’s lights brightened, and Zarkon stood, offering him a hand. “I promise to be a gentleman, Keith. It is simply a walk.”

Keith took his hand, though he shook his head. “Then why send Kymin and Thace away?”

“Because discipline and order must be maintained, and you are not a soldier of mine.” Zarkon tugged him toward the garden. Keith followed, his steps far more cautious. “Tell me, Keith. Why did you really wear the green ribbon?”

“I didn’t know the meaning was so serious.”

Zarkon shook his head as they walked the stone paths. The leaves and flowers moved around them like they were infested with spirits. “You can’t fool me, Keith. You’re not the type to disregard the warnings of those around you just because. You at least have a reason to be the fool.”

“It was my favourite colour on Earth.” He swallowed and looked away from Zarkon. “Where I went to school as a cadet, everything was red, grey, and yellow. Back at home--in Toronto-- there were patches of pure, lush green plants. Those were places I could breathe and relax. They were healing, in a way. And I guess, at the Palace, I missed that.”

Zarkon’s hand touched his arm. “That’s understandable,” Zarkon said. “The plant life on Gal is so different. I imagine I would hunger for red on your planet.”

“Then you understand why I ignored Gryva’s advice. I adore her, and her skills as Palace servant are unmatched, but my heart was set on it.” He sighed. “The Palace is a strange place. I know, on Earth, there have been colours forbidden in older times-- whether for what they mean, or because they’re reserved for certain classes.”

“There was a time where such restrictions existed on Gal,” Zarkon said. “Such times have passed. Now, the only taboo of colour is green. An unfortunate choice. Green is a charming colour with quite a bit of passion. And you looked quite good in it, if you’ll excuse the forwardness.”

“You’re forgiven.” Keith stopped in front of a flower the size of a tire. Stamens jabbed out from the purple petals; powdery blue pollen coated them. “I feel like the longer I’m with the Galra, the less I know. What do I really know about the Voice, after all? She’s spoken to me before, but she says nothing now, Even Volux’s help has brought nothing.”

Zarkon stopped beside him. “What do you mean?”

“Where is she from?” Keith turned to Zarkon. “Why does she give quintessence? Why did she choose the Galra, and why did she do this,” and he motioned to his body, “to me?”

Zarkon didn’t reply. They stood in silence. “I cannot tell you everything. You understand that.” Zarkon sighed. “She comes from beyond the edges of our universe. I’ve told you that creatures drift in-- drifted. The tense is, dearest Keith, important. Our bond with the Voice has allowed us to not only wield quintessence but protect our universe from intruders. We exchange quintessence, and in that exchange, it is morphed into something protective. The Druids assist Her in constructing the barrier.”

Keith gaped. “I… Holy shit.” He rubbed his temple. “So the Voice is stopping dimensional invasions?”

“If you wish to simplify it, yes.” 

Except that wasn’t the truth of it. The Voice drained people and planets; it gave nothing in return--except maybe the barrier Zarkon claimed existed, and what reason would he have to lie about that? How powerful were the creatures from beyond the universe? They’d been powerful enough to justify Voltron’s creation.

Keith’s head ached. “Why didn’t Altea approve of her, then? She was saving the universe.”

“Because they feared the power the Voice gave to the Galra,” Zarkon said. “They would rather rule a decaying universe than be servants in a strong one. They accused the Voice of horrific crimes, as though Her nature was anything but benign. I’m sure Princess Allura would have many a tale to tell you about the evils of the Voice if she got the chance.”

Why was Zarkon doing this? All feeding the Voice did was postpone the inevitable death of the universe. Eventually, they would run out of quintessence: planets and people were finite. Zarkon, though, was the only living Paladin who’d fought the creatures from outside the universe. He would know, better than anyone else, how strong those creatures were. Poisoning his people, destroying other races, and obliterating the Alteans were not decisions to be made lightly. Something had convinced Zarkon that the Voice was  _ worth _ all that misery. 

Keith looked at Zarkon and wondered, then, how unhappy the man must be. He’d hidden every choice he’d ever made behind a veil of propaganda and destroyed history. The only ones who could correct him were alive again, but if he had his way, not for long. Zarkon would do everything he needed to keep the charade alive. He had to know that-- if any of the Galra knew the truth--many would revolt. They wouldn’t remember or understand the threat beyond the shaky barrier the Voice constructed to protect her meals. 

And that’s what they had to be to her. Meals. Every person’s quintessence was like a gheron’s milk. She ate, and ate, and ate until people died--and then a new gheron would replace the old, while she kept the herd safe from kralick. She wasn’t a goddess. She didn’t bless people with powers. She was simply another predator.

Anger threatened to overtake his mind, but he knew now how to bank the coals. “They’ve never spoke of the Voice,” he said. “Maybe they hoped to hide any of Altea’s mistakes.” If he ever saw Allura and Coran again, he’d apologize. The Alteans had been right to try to stop Zarkon. A slow death was still a death, after all, though Zarkon seemed unwilling to concede that by harbouring the Voice.

Zarkon laughed, low and quiet. “The Alteans have always been a stubborn people. Shayan--you remember him, yes? He’s as tenacious as the winds themselves. He reminds me of those Altean diplomats that plagued my halls when I found the Voice and spoke with her.”

He didn’t need to ask what the Altean diplomats hounded Zarkon for. The conversation drifted into a comfortable silence as Keith refused to think about what he’d learned. If he panicked, Hyladra would realize something had gone wrong, and if his temper burst, Zarkon would realize there was something afoot. 

The silence broke when Zarkon spoke. They talked about simple things: the feeling of a Lion, colours, dances, and Keith even spoke about where he’d come from. Toronto’s high skyline intrigued Zarkon, who spoke of planets covered in a single, sprawling city. Zarkon had lived over a hundred lifetimes: there was little he hadn’t seen.

“The only things,” Zarkon said, “that still intrigue me about this universe, Keith, are yourself, the Lions, and your little planet, untouched by the terror of this universe.”

“It’s less nice than you make it sound,” Keith said. “We’ve got war, hunger, sickness, and destruction. It’s not perfect. It might not even be good.”

“No place is good,” was Zarkon’s reply. “The best that can be said is that it is  _ interesting _ .”

They returned to the patio as clouds moved away from the moons. The moonlight illuminated the garden and reflected off the polished stone of the patio. Volux and Thace waited for them, a little fire crackling around their feet. A little pouch was offered when Keith hopped up. 

“Salt and blood,” Volux said.

“Have you two already done it?” he asked. Both nodded. He looked over his shoulder at Zarkon. The man reached down to take the pouch. Large grains of jagged salt were poured into Zarkon’s large hand. Zarkon muttered something and threw the handful into the fire. The crackling grew louder. 

Zarkon motioned for Keith to cup his hand. The salt burned against Keith’s skin. “The salt of duty,” Zarkon murmured, “or the passion of blood?”

The choice mattered. Duty demanded he fight Zarkon and kill the Voice. Passion urged him not to turn on people who had been kind to him, and to work something out. Fighting the Voice and Zarkon would burn every bridge he’d ever built among the Galra. He clutched the salt in his hand. Hyladra would hate him. The welcome he’d found at Galran tables beside Galran minds would vanish. The Galra were not good--as Zarkon said, no planet was. But they were closer to his heart than they ever should have been.

He threw the salt into the fire. The ruby flames were like the blood that should have run through his veins. “Salt,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update's on the 15th Atlantic! Other than that, you can find me at the-wenzel.tumblr.com <3


	11. Interlude

“She didn’t get anything, did she?” Lance leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “Just more ghosts and questions.”

Pidge didn’t meet his eyes. “The officer hadn’t seen him before.” Her fingers flew over the keyboard, though Lance wondered what she could even focus on. “All he’d seen was the Emperor. Who looks just fine, by the way.” Her eyes were carefully bored, as though she weren’t hit deep by the news. She watched her screen like it held all the answers, and everyone else could burn for all she cared.

Lance wished he could take on the same aura. Something deep in his heart quavered whenever the news came back from an interrogation. Nothing good came from the Galra. Not even stolen messages. “Then what are we doing now?” he asked.

Pidge shrugged. “Finding more Galra to interrogate.”

“At this rate we’ll go through the entire Empire before we get something about Keith!” Lance swore as he pushed off the wall. “Where’s Allura?” Pidge jabbed a finger in the interrogation room’s direction. She didn’t argue with him, or call out as he stormed past. What he would have said if she had… he didn’t know. All he knew was the crackling anger that’d taken seat in his stomach ever since Keith had vanished.

Hunk would be with Coran-- they worked the strange memory machine together, though Hunk cringed whenever it was used-- while Allura and Shiro would be asking the questions. Sometimes, at least. Shiro’s attendance at the interrogations were spotty. Lance suspected they reminded him of darker times. He didn’t knock when he reached the room.

The Galra soldier lay unconscious under a long, flat machine above them. Sensors had been attached all around his head. Allura sat in a chair near their head, her hands folded in her lap. Opposite, Shiro picked at the sensors.

Allura didn’t look surprised at Lance’s arrival. “If you’re here about the results,” she said, “then we can be disappointed together. I am unsure of what else I can offer.”

“He’s got to know  _ something _ ,” Lance snapped. “He’s been on Gal. I caught him on a flight off of it. We’ve seen Keith walking the halls from others like them. What’s so different this time?”

Allura took a deep breath. Lance tried not to hate her for it. “This one arrived on Gal after the reported attack on Central Command. They believe Keith dead or removed from Central Command. Pidge shared such gossip with us already, and we know what Shiro saw, and this Galra is middling-ranked. If anything secretive has happened to Keith, why would they know?”

It was too neatly tied together. He told her that. “There’s always gossip. They have to have heard  _ something _ \--”

“The machine is not that precise, and I will not have people torturing Galra,” Allura said, voice steel. “If you want to talk to them, then I invite you to do so. I doubt you will get much, if anything, from them. Galra soldiers know better than to talk.” She stood, arranged her dress’ skirt, and left the room, her posture stiff. Lance imagined her teeth ground inside her closed-lipped mouth.

“You could have done that better,” Shiro said. 

“I’m tired of waiting.” Lance crossed his arms. “We know where Keith is.”

“We have an  _ idea _ \--”

“An idea from  _ you _ and the Lions.” Lance paced the opposite side of the room from Shiro. “The Red Lion is there on Gal. We’ve stormed Central Command before. Why are we leaving Keith to rot? It’s been  _ months _ .” Thousands have died, Lance wanted to shout. The Beasts tore through what resistance they offered. Without Keith, Voltron meant nothing: it was just a quartet of stupid mechanical lions and their dumber Paladins.

“You’re angry, and I know why.” Shiro sighed. “I don’t find this great either, Lance. I don’t like seeing people die. I don’t like feeling useless. But we almost died at Central Command. It cost us Keith too. Who would we lose this time if we charged Gal?”

Lance stopped and glared at the wall. “So we just keep getting more and more scraps of information and do nothing with them. Great. Perfect. We’re true heroes, defenders of the universe, legendary Paladins--”

“ _ Lance _ ,” Shiro said. The Galra still dozed, oblivious. Shiro shook his head. “Please. Information is power. It’s what we have-- it’s all we have. If we can find an opportunity, we can exploit it and get Keith back.”

“And what’ll be left of him?” Lance demanded. “He’s a POW. You know what the Galra do.” He motioned to Shiro’s arm. “I’m not saying this to be an asshole. I know you’re still dealing with it. But we’re leaving Keith to the same shit that happened to you. What’s going to happen to him?”

“I don’t know.” Shiro looked away. “I haven’t had answers in a long time.” 

Words abandoned Lance. He stared at Shiro. The fire in his gut went out, like a bucket of ice cold water had been poured on it. What could he say to that? He didn’t see tears, but Shiro’s tense body declared a sudden, shocking weakness. 

“Sorry,” Lance said. He didn’t know what else to say. “I’m just… I’m scared. And I feel like we’re failing everyone.” Was it fair to tell Shiro that? Shiro piloted Black, which made him the leader, and part of leadership was dealing with things like this. But it wasn’t fair to Shiro when he was suffering too.

Shiro looked at him and smiled weakly. “It’s okay. We’ll figure it all out. If we wait, the Galra will slip up at some point. Keep that faith. I escaped once too, after all.”

_ You came back bleeding and scarred _ , Lance wanted to say. It’d be cruel to say, though. Shiro wanted to cling to the hope that Keith would come back fine. Maybe Shiro thought Keith was too valuable to hurt, or that Keith would succeed where Shiro had failed in protecting himself. Lance knew that fighting Shiro’s thoughts would only hurt the man and do nothing to bring Keith back. He kept his silence as he looked away from Shiro. When the room’s door opened, Lance braced himself for Hunk’s worry.

Pidge stood in the doorway, her hands in fists and her skin waxy white. “Something’s happened.”

“What?” Shiro abandoned the unconscious Galra to rush over to Pidge. “Pidge, are you okay?”

She shook her head as Shiro steadied her. “There’s been an attack on the Sonata Palace. Multiple people are dead.” She took a deep breath. “Radio chatter says there are attacks all over the Empire.”

And Keith-- unarmed, separated from his Lion, possibly abused-- was somewhere in the centre of it all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update is the 26th of August, Atlantic! I'm taking a little vacation away from Salt and Blood to recharge for the upcoming crunch time for other projects. <3 I'll see you guys then! If you want to keep an eye on how things are going, you can find me at the-wenzel.tumblr.com. :3


	12. Chapter 12

Zarkon touched his shoulder, pressed a kiss against his hair, and let him go into the Palace. Had Keith’s answer pleased him, or did Zarkon see Keith as a challenge? What mattered, though, were the empty halls and his jaw-cracking yawns. “How late is it?” he asked as Hyladra and Gryva led him through the trophy rooms.

“Far beyond the hour of ghosts,” Gryva said. “You should have been in bed hours ago.”

Good, he thought. Marmora wouldn’t have room to complain about his work. The one person who could complain did: when his room door opened, Rime bolted out, squeaking and croaking as its hands grabbed at his pants’ hem.

“Calm down,” he told it as he squatted down to pick the dendin up. Heida and Kiya nursed nipped fingers and toes. “You two tried to comfort it, I assume?”

Kiya refused to meet his eyes, as though embarrassed. Heida sighed into the silence before she nodded. “It sounded like it was destroying things,” she said. “We were worried, so we opened the door.” Heida grimaced. “It was a poor decision.”

“Did it break skin?” he asked.

Kiya replied. “Thankfully not. But its teeth hurt like needles.”

“I know that feeling,” Keith said as Rime squirmed in his hands, desperate to investigate every inch of him. “Calm down, brat.” He held it above the legs and right below its jaw. It froze, as though scared, so Keith released it back into his room and closed the door. “I should sleep, but I want to thank all of you for helping me today. Even if some of you have more wounds than others.”

Kiya laughed. “The pain will fade, as will the bruises.” Heida hummed in agreement as she slathered a cream over the pads of her fingers. “Sleep well, Prince Caith. If you need assistance in preparing for bed--”

“Thank you,” he said, “but I think I’ll be quite fine. You two should get to bed yourselves.” The words earned him four wawus that he endured with an awkward smile. Relief flooded him when he got in his room. Everything was finished for the day. Marmora’s plan-- whatever it was-- had hopefully worked. He’d know soon, if Marmora truly kept their word. He didn’t know what he’d do if the Galra stopped contact and continued on with what they’d got from Keith.

Rime nipped at his heels as he walked, like the world’s smallest herding dog. Keith focused on disrobing, bathing, brushing his teeth, and then sprawling in his bed. The door to the balcony was closed. Rime was liable to do something foolish if given access to it unwatched.

When someone knocked on the balcony door, it roused him from a doze. Rime helped wake him by charging the door and croaking at it angrily. Its ears were pressed back as its wings rose, making it look twice its normal size. “That works on other little things,” he told it as he gathered himself from bed. “Not on Galra.” He scooped it up and put it in his pajama robe’s hood. It peered over his shoulder, hiccuping croaks right into his neck.

He knew it had to be Marmora. When he opened the door, he stepped to the side. The air shimmered and turned opaque as Marmora appeared; the Galra didn’t enter the room. “Outside,” Marmora said. “The interference with the cameras will only last so long.”

Of course there’d be cameras. He’d assumed there’d be cameras, but it was unsettling to think that they’d been tracking everything he’d done outside of Marmora’s visits. Nobody had confronted him about the kralick-marked folder, though, so he considered it largely irrelevant.

Keith slipped out onto the balcony. “The operation?”

“Went according to plan,” Marmora said. “They attempted to contact the Emperor, but he was off in the garden with you, unaware that we’d stolen information. You did well.”

Keith refused to smirk or preen at the compliment. “So what does it mean for us now? I’ve done you two things at great risk to myself, Marmora. You know I can do more for you, but I’m going to need information on what you’re planning.”

“Brazen,” Marmora said. “You’re a brazen man, even if your methods are dishonourable.” Marmora laughed, eerie and mechanical. “We are of a kind.” Keith remained silent as he leaned against the Palace’s wall. “Who are you, Caith?”

Keith reached back to stroke Rime’s head. Should he tell, or should he dodge? “You ask me that every time,” he said. “Yet you give me nothing when I ask what your people want.”

“A trade, then.” Marmora crossed their arms. “You tell me who you are, and I will tell you about who I and my people are.”

Who first, though? Marmora wasn’t visibly armed, and they hated the Empire and Voice. “I’ll do us both a favour and tell you first. I am not of the Blackmouths, nor am I a prince. I’m the Red Paladin in an unfortunate new form.”

Marmora stared. They didn’t gasp or reel back, but instead cocked their head to the side. “... I confess that it never occurred to me. How are you now a Galra?”

“The Voice decided to interfere.” Keith sighed.. “But I promise that I speak the truth. Why else would the Emperor be so interested in me? How else would I have access to the Emperor’s personal office? It’s a difficult situation to believe, but it is real.”

“What of the Red Lion?” Marmora examined him feature by feature. “How have you not escaped?”

“The Red Lion’s bond is blocked, and I have no desire to return to Voltron as a Galra without the Red Lion.” Keith shrugged. “And now you understand why I’ve helped you. Who are you, then, Marmora? What plans does your organization have?”

“You move so easily from the revelation you’ve given!” Marmora laughed. “I can hardly believe that I speak to a Paladin of Voltron. We have waited for your kind like a child waits for magic.” Marmora nodded at him. “The Blade of Marmora welcomes you, Paladin. We have worked for centuries to fight the Empire and Voice. It pains me to say that it has taken us this long, but the Emperor’s strong grasp on the Empire makes even the smallest movements… difficult.”

“Movements to what, though?” Keith remained by the wall. Part of him worried he might spook Marmora: there was no evidence to back up his claims that he was a Paladin, after all. At least, other than what he knew.

“Tell me, Paladin… Where did you find the Black Lion?”

Keith raised a brow. “Arus. It was with the Castle of Lions. Red was aboard a Galran ship. Blue waited on Earth for someone to find her. Should I tell you where the Green Lion was? What about Yellow? I am the Red Paladin. I have nothing more to offer but memories.”

Marmora contemplated him. “You are well-spoken and clever. I accept your argument-- for now, at least.” Marmora took a seat, and Keith tried to reconcile that with the wary Galra who’d never settled around a stranger. “Sit. We aim to destroy the Voice and then kill the Emperor.”

Keith sat, but his heart skipped a beat at Marmora’s words. “An understandable conclusion to the problem.” Keith leaned back in the chair. “And how do you plan to do it? The Voice is from far beyond our universe. Is she even corporeal?”

Marmora paused. “You know something of the Voice, then.”

“I spoke to the Emperor. He felt it time to share some things about the nature of the Voice.” Keith prayed he wasn’t making a mistake. “The Voice came from far beyond our universe-- as one of many beings.” Did he tell Marmora why Zarkon fed the Voice? Would Marmora still want to kill the Voice if he knew? “You hate the Voice. You know what she does to your people and outsiders. If she had protected you, though… Would you still look on her so unkindly?”

“There is no reason,” Marmora said, “in this universe or any other, that would justify what she and the Emperor have done.”

Passionate words, but he didn’t know if Marmora told the truth. “Pretty words. Then you’ll feel no different when I tell you that the Emperor has fed and cared for the Voice as she protects the universe from more of her own kind.”

Marmora hissed. “I would say that you lie,” they said. “And yet what reason would you have to lie? I have no desire to turn away from my organization’s goals.”

“Good,” Keith said, though he had none of Marmora’s certainty. “What’s the next step?”

Marmora contemplated him and Rime. “You won’t like it.”

“What I like doesn’t matter.”

Marmora laughed, rough and quiet. “Then I will tell you on your own word.”

 

* * *

 

“You’re going to be glad you didn’t go as a Blackmouth,” Hyladra said. She adjusted her vivid red dress around her knees. Beads hung from the hem, and they clattered together when she walked. “I’ve heard the Palace’s Moonbreak Festival is hard to get away from. You can’t make excuses to leave, you understand?”

Keith nodded. His clothes were old armor from the time of Great Heroes-- or at least what scholars thought of it. Hyladra knew Gryva had called several historians before she had the clothes made. A brown leather tunic covered his upper body, while a skirt of copper protected his genitals and thighs. His helm was the face of a kralick: feline, though its snout jutted out, lined with teeth, and all the fur had been stripped from the skin. A row of brilliant feathers decorated the top, all of them a brilliant shade of purple. They matched the amethysts that decorated Keith’s long leather boots.

He grimaced as he pulled the helm on. It turned his voice into an echo as the sound worked its way through the metal muzzle. “So I’m Ghrel of the, uh… Croya, right?”

“First of his name,” Hyladra said, “and Lord of Blood and Ash. For today, you are him: keep your head high and your back straight. If anyone asks who your love is, it’s Tyla, Lady of the Volcanoes.”

“... Okay.”

She had to bite back a laugh at the resignation in his voice. “It’ll be fine, Caith. You look good, and you’ll be by the Emperor’s side fairly quickly. Just stay away from any women dressed in yellow shifts. Be courteous, but they may wish to flirt with you.”

“Yellow shift means Tyla?” he asked. He offered a hand to her, as though he could ever lead her through the crowded halls in his helm. “I don’t think if I’m close to Zarkon any woman will want to flirt.”

Hyladra shrugged. “While your short stature makes you recognizable to those who know you, there will be many from outside the Palace or who haven’t been to the few meals you’ve attended. The Moonbreak Festival is a departure from norms. Flirting with random strangers over silly things like your personas being similar is considered quite fine.” She frowned. “Until it turns out that the stranger is someone the Emperor is… interested in, shall we say.”

Keith’s pained noise was interrupted by Gryva’s arrival. She wore the red mourning gown of a ghost and had even forgone shoes. “We should get to the ballroom before the Emperor,” Gryva said. The grey at her temples lended her spirit-form a dignified air. While Gryva was only thirty-five, years at the Palace had aged her significantly. Not that her health had declined: she lifted heavy things, hurried about the Palace, and woke every morning at the same time, ready for her special breakfast that she claimed would let her live until seventy.

The halls were busy-- even more than their usual crush of people. Gryva cursed as people stepped on her gown’s hem. Hyladra had no time to defend her: Keith was blind in his helmet, but taking it off would be considered rude. It forced her to lead him around and protect him from over-eager visitors who wanted to get to the ballroom first.

“So much for being early,” Keith murmured.

Hyladra snorted. “It gets worse later,” she told him, though she didn’t know how much worse it could get before the guards stopped letting more people into the Palace. Everyone wanted to see the Emperor, and more than a few desired to see Prince Caith. It was why Gryva had given him a helm, beyond following strict tradition of masks: if Prince Caith was spotted in the halls, people would descend on him like a flock of carrion birds on a corpse.

Getting into the ballroom was a nightmare.  The neat lines her people so loved were ignored in the excitement of the Moonbreak Festival. Hyladra tried to puff out her fur and straightened up, hoping to fill more space for her group. Her clothes were heavy, fighting her efforts with her fur, but she managed. One short, slim woman threw herself out of Hyladra’s path. The little bird of a Galra had likely never faced a soldier barrelling down on her.

Hyladra got them to the front, and Gryva dealt with invitations and announcements. Many of the Galra who’d rushed to the front found themselves sidelined: they lacked high-ranking servants, or they weren’t aggressive enough to assert their presence. In some cases, she spied some waiting to dart in without invitations. They’d be carted out soon enough, likely charged with some crime or another.

Keith tensed when they entered the ballroom. The grandness of the room overwhelmed, she thought, even for her. The glass ceiling showed the moon hanging low in the sky. Stars speckled around the moon, like flecks of paint. The walls were dark, and almost faded into the sky’s void. The white marbled floor had etched veins of obsidian that curled and swirled all across it, like space itself had been poured into a cup of milk. The cold marble soaked through her thin, silken slippers, and she didn’t envy Gryva’s bare feet.

The room, despite the crowds outside, had plenty of space. Around the room’s edges, long tables had been laden with foods and beverages. Their legs were black, blending into the walls, while the tops were cloud-white. People crowded around, picking up snacks and placing them in little cups.

At the far right end of the ballroom,the Emperor sat in a grand silver throne made of jagged metal. He wore the armour he used at Central Command. People clustered around him; some had sycophantic expressions, their tails raised high, while others were wiser and far more guarded.

“Do you want to talk to him?” Hyladra murmured to Keith.

Keith shook his head. “Not yet. I’m, uh, hungry.”

Which was fair, as Keith hadn’t eaten in hours. He’d refused to eat before coming, fearing that it’d sour his stomach or that the Emperor would shower him in food that he wouldn’t be able to eat. Keith preferred sweet foods, a strange similarity to the rumours about the Emperor’s tastes. She watched him scoop up pieces of fruit, berries, and candied blossoms into a cup.

“You should eat some real food,” she told him. “You’ll get dizzy otherwise.”

Keith frowned over his little cup of candy. “I guess.” He picked up a few pieces of meat and layered it atop his candy. She raised a brow higher, and he took a pair of slices of cheese.

It was enough protein. She packed her own cup of food, much meatier and filling, though it wasn’t for her. She’d eaten before coming. Keith would get hungry in an hour or two, by which point the buffet tables would be empty. Then he’d be frowning and scowling, his stomach growling, and she’d come to the rescue.

Keith put his back to a wall, leaned against it, and began to eat with his fingers. She took up her post beside him; across and down the room, by the entrance, Gryva watched them. Manners kept Gryva away from the party. Only Hyladra’s role as a Hani allowed her onto the ballroom’s floor.

Keith watched people move around the room. Some flocked to the food; others huddled together, talking. “... How do they dance for the Moonbreak Festival?”

Hyladra couldn’t resist eating a piece of gheron cheese. “Elegantly.” He sighed, and she laughed. “Like the reeds. You’ve seen it before, Caith.” He had to remember the party she’d thrown. It’d taken quite a bit of effort to put together on such short notice. She still viewed the event with pride: Keith’s face had been one of wonder.

“I remember.” Keith leaned in to her. His personal warmth was intense, even for a Galra. “Would it be proper to take the helm off now, or--?”

The helm forced Keith to feed himself through the bottom, with the helm’s snout raised. He’d get food smeared on it if she left him to it for long. “You should be safe to raise it completely. Just don’t take it off.”

“Hm.” Keith adjusted his helm and proceeded to gorge himself on food. His sharp teeth glinted in the lights surrounding the glass ceiling. Blue liquids smeared over the white teeth.

“Savage.” Keith snorted in reply as she looked up and down the room. The flow of people had slowed. Fifty notables filled the ballroom, with half around the Emperor. “You should make your appearance once you finish your food. The Emperor might be offended otherwise.”

Keith shrugged. He munched on his food until, finally, he crumpled his cup up, stuffed it in a pocket, and flicked his helm down into position. “Let’s do this.”

She didn’t know what to think about his sudden determination. She led him toward the Emperor, conscious of the eyes turning to her. People pulled back. The Emperor watched Keith approach, his face calm.

“Prince Caith.” The Emperor nodded as Keith fell into a quick wawu. “You look stunning.”

“Only the best for the Moonbreak Festival,” Keith said and tapped his helm’s snout. “Thank you for the invitation, Emperor. It means a great deal to me.”

The Emperor smiled, and the expression looked genuine. Hyladra stamped down on her excitement. The bond between Keith and the Emperor fluctuated between quiet barbs and strange admiration. She didn’t see much of it, but what she did encouraged her every thought. Keith would be the Emperor’s Red Paladin. The other Paladins would be chosen as needed. Hopefully her name would be among them. _Blue would be the best_. She kept the thoughts from the bond with Keith. He radiated his usual anxiety and intensity, which distracted him from her thoughts.

“It was a selfish act.” The Emperor’s gauntlet-covered fingers tapped against his throne’s armrest. “If you’ll forgive the admission. I couldn’t hold such an event without having you. It would be quite boring.”

Keith didn’t laugh, though he likely smiled under the helm. “I confess I’m here for the food.” People tittered and chuckled all around the Emperor, who joined in.

“Hopefully you find the tables to your tastes.” The Emperor motioned to the dance floor. “And that you show your skill with your body. Will you save a dance for me?”

Keith laughed. It didn’t sound genuine, but then she knew him better than anyone else in the room. “Of course. When you wish for a dance, I will be ready.” He did another wawu before he went to the sides, allowing other Galra to queue for introductions. Hyladra followed him.

They stopped beside Commander Prorok. Hyladra’s heart thundered in her chest, and she wondered if the officer knew Keith’s identity. Prorok’s bored expression didn’t change as Keith stood beside him, though he sent a sidelong glance at Keith. When Keith took off his helm, Prorok froze.

“It’s a beautiful night for this,” Keith said. “The moons are bright and full, and the stars are just as good.”

Hyladra waited, giving chance for Prorok to speak. The man didn’t take the opportunity, so she filled the silence. “It certainly illuminates this room. It’s kept special for the Moonbreak Festival, you realize?”

“That’s interesting.” Keith looked up at the ceiling, as though stargazing. “The Palace’s marvels are numerous.”

“It must be a change from your time among the Blackmouths.” Prorok examined--no, _admired_ \--Keith’s profile. “The grandness could overwhelm smaller minds.”

“Maybe. It’s best to admire it, accept it, and then move on.” Keith nodded at Prorok. “I don’t believe we truly got to speak at that supper, Commander. It’s a pleasure to see you again amongst the best of the Palace.”

Prorok puffed up. “Refusing the Emperor’s invitation would be foolish. Many Galra dream of visiting the Palace for the festival. The honour is something to love.”

“I didn’t realize that, though it’s not unexpected. I can see how some would dream of this. It’s magical.” Keith grinned. “The people here are glorious as well. Strong soldiers, wise diplomats, and even little fools like me.”

Prorok laughed, the sound half surprised. “You have the tongue of a charmer, so take heart!” Prorok’s bright expression carried a hint of softness. When had Keith become so charming, Hyladra wondered. “I’d rather have you here than a dozen hanger-ons. The Palace full of them already.”

Keith hummed agreement. “There’s little good about people who will sacrifice their dignity to get ahead.” He frowned, as though the words troubled him. “If nothing else, the Emperor disdains it.”

“Always.” Prorok scratched his cheek as he looked at the Galra after Galra who lined up to greet the Emperor and flatter him. Prorok shook his head and turned to face Keith. “What _do_ the Blackmouths celebrate?”

Hyladra stiffened mid-bite of another slice of cheese. The bond spiked with panic on both ends. “Mostly nature festivities,” Keith said, smooth as the Palace’s stone facade. “We honour the seasons, storms, and the gift of life to the planet. Our legends are much less extensive than Gal’s, unfortunately.”

Prorok nodded slowly. “Your people have had much less time to develop them. With your return, you’ve once again become an heir to Gal’s--have your servants instructed you on the Moonbreak Festival’s traditions?”

“Some.” Keith shrugged, the expression striking in a sea of elegance and poise. “The costumes, the balls, the free for all, and the joy amid sorrow… Those were covered. The rest, however, was determined to be little surprises for me to discover.”

There’d been no such discussion like that. Hyladra hid a frown in her cup. The Emperor had told Keith pieces of the festival, while Gryva had given him a five minute talk on what it entailed. Hyladra had tried to furnish him with information on smaller customs and traditions, but it seemed like Keith hadn’t bothered to remember.

Keith reached over the bond, gentle and soothing, as though summoned. It was an act, then. Maybe Keith wanted Prorok to talk to him through teaching. Why, Hyladra didn’t know. What did Keith gain by having Prorok fawning over him?

Prorok grinned, his teeth monstrously large. His high rank had blessed him with the animalistic features of the Galran ancestors. Hyladra found them ugly, though she’d never voice it aloud. “We should drink shufan together.”

“Shufan?” Keith blinked and cocked his head to the side. “What’s that?”

Prorok looped an arm around Keith’s waist. “Shufan is a sweet wine made from elhorn berries. Aged for decades, it is stored deep in the earth in smoked wooden barrels. Every time the Moonbreak Festival comes, the Emperor brings a cask from thousands of years back. This vintage has aged for six thousand years.”

The casks were worth their weight in quintessence. Hyladra followed behind the pair as Prorok brought Keith to a decanter of shufan. Silver and glittering, it looked like mercury. Its thick consistency and strange taste made shufan a controversial, if traditional, choice at tables. Few had shufan as old as the Emperor’s collection and few enjoyed the sweetness like the Emperor did. “Pour two glasses,” Prorok said when they were in front of the lone decanter. “A splash for each of us. As tradition demands, the youngest care for the eldest.”

“I’d hardly call you _old_.” Keith reached into his costume’s pocket and tossed out his crumpled cup. After, he took two obsidian bowl-like cups and then he clasped the decanter in two hands, one near the top and one by the bottom. He gave each glass a quick splash of drink. “Are you a fan of shufan?”

Prorok took his glass and swirled the liquid around the cup. “I’ve been known to indulge.” Prorok smiled like no one watched them. Hyladra didn’t tense, but her body wanted to. Prorok reeked of a threat, though what kind, she didn’t know. “Take a taste! You won’t regret it.”

Prorok took less of a taste and more of a gulp. Keith mirrored the motion, though his enthusiasm was less. A little sip made its way into his mouth. Hyladra braced for a negative reaction. Most people hated shufan. Anyone who drank it did so for the Emperor’s sake.

Keith’s lips pursed. “That’s pretty good.”

“Isn’t it?” Prorok said, his gleaming eyes already taking on the purple hue of drunkenness. Shufan had six thousand years to brew itself to the strength of an armada. “So many hate the sweetness, but that is the tradition of Gal.”

Keith laughed. “I prefer it to the strong sourness that everything else seems to have.” He rolled the glass’ stem between his fingers. Silver flecks splashed out, on to his hand. It stopped him, as though reminding Keith that he was at the Moonbreak Festival in the Palace-- not in a gloomy desert town with his family. He took another sip. The infused quintessence of his eyes struggled to overcome the alcohol.

The connection to the Voice blurred as alcohol clouded the brain. Her grasp loosened, and Her own mind moved away from the sudden threat to Her control. The constant blaze of quintessence She gave left too.

Prorok beamed. “Would you like more?”

“I can’t,” Keith said. He eyed the contents of his cup. “I hate feeling drunk, and I’m afraid I’m a lightweight with shufan. But… one last sip.” When he finished the sup, droplets of shufan dotted his lip. “I guess I should pour it out? I’d give it to my Hani, but I’m not sure if that’s appropriate.”

“It is not, Prince,” Hyladra said. “It is only for the Emperor’s chosen guests.”

Keith’s gaze moved to Prorok. “I don’t wish to give you my leftovers--”

“Nonsense!” Prorok gulped down his glass. “Here, I’ll take it.” He jabbed out a wobbly arm. Keith handed the glass over. The shufan vanished into Prorok’s gullet.

Keith reached to the table and picked up another paper cup. This time, he disdained sweets. Meats, cheese, and breads were slipped into it. Keith flashed a smile at her before he turned back to Prorok. “Thank you, Commander.” He nibbled at a piece of reddish-gold lumpy cheese. “I suspect it will be a long night, so I can hardly be drunk for it. Your constitution is far stronger than mine.”

Prorok preened under the praise. His purple eyes raked over Keith’s form. “A soldier must be strong, Caith.” Hyladra stiffened at the use of Keith’s name. “I’ve heard you care for your body as well, but the softness of Palace life fights every one of your efforts. If you ever wish to taste the life of a soldier, I am willing to help.”

 _Lecherous_. Her hands balled. Claws dug into her palm. Keith laughed, though by all the laws that mattered, he had the right to strike Prorok down. Prorok risked his life with his flirtations: if Keith didn’t attack him, the Emperor would.

Prorok choked. His second glass had evidently gone down poorly, likely into a lung. Keith rushed to his side and gave a solid whack to his back. “Breathe!”

Prorok unleashed a wet, crackling sound. The room’s chatter subsided. Hyladra abandoned her post as Keith tried to talk to Prorok. “Commander?” Keith leaned to Prorok’s level, who’d hunched over, his hands at his throat. “Someone get a doctor!”

A splash of blood poured from Prorok’s mouth. The green splattered on to Keith’s shoes and fur. Hyladra froze. Someone screamed. Prorok’s legs gave out; Hyladra dove in, catching him with Keith. “Commander,” Hyladra said. “Nod if you’re choking.”

All Prorok did was gag. Hyladra pried his mouth open as Prorok coughed up more blood. She grimaced, searching with her fingers for a obstruction. She felt nothing, though. “Hold him up,” she told Keith as she withdrew her hands and went behind Prorok. She’d taken courses every year on how to unblock air passages, but what if she broke a commanding officer’s rib? Prorok would have to forgive her if she saved his life.

She hooked her hands in a fist and situated it in the proper position. Blood dribbled down his front as his head lolled about. He didn’t wake for the first jab. The second earned some twitching. “Keep his head up, Caith.”

Keith, wide-eyed and horrified, grabbed Prorok’s head and tilted it up. The open mouth acted as a slide for the blood, pouring over Keith. He didn’t even flinch. He’d seen blood so many times it’d lost its power.

Again, again, and again she tried to force the object from his throat. But after the fourth, she knew it a lost cause. Whatever ailed Prorok, it didn’t choke him. Only a doctor’s help mattered now. What concerned her, though, was Keith’s glassy eyes. Prorok had ingested something, and Keith had drank the shufan as well.

“Someone come take the commander!” Her voice echoed and the growl in it caused her to wince. She sounded frightened. A pair of guards came, though, and they took over nursing Prorok. It left her to her real duty. She took Keith to the side. Both of them trailed blood over the floor. “You drank the shufan. How much?”

Keith’s jaw dropped. “You think--?” She nodded sharply. “Two sips. I… I should go see a doctor, shouldn’t I.”

“As soon as possible.” Someone had poisoned shufan, the sacred drink of the gods, the Emperor’s favourite, the most divine and expensive drink the Empire had ever produced. The sacrilege stabbed her heart like a knife. Whatever Galra had done it, they were soulless. She didn’t even know if the Clarion would dare ruin shufan. The gravity of the crime weighed more than any murder, except for the Emperor’s.

“We need to leave.” Hyladra looked high above, at the glass ceiling. “If this is a prelude to an attack, they have done it finely.” She grabbed Keith’s hand. “Follow me. Do not stop for _anyone_.”

She didn’t wait for his agreement. Her stride carried them over the ballroom floor. People dove from their path, horrified by the blood. Her glare didn’t help. Gryva joined their procession from the room, taking up the rear. “We need a doctor, Gryva,” Keith whispered to her. “We think the shufan was poisoned.”

Someone they passed gasped. Every Galra in the capital would know the news by the night’s end. Hyladra pushed through one stubborn man who refused to budge from his place in the line to the ballroom. She made sure to smear blood on to his costume as punishment.

Gryva broke off to fetch a doctor when they left the last of the crowds. Hyladra took Keith down a side hall’s side hall: portraits lined the walls, all of them exquisitely painted yet boring. Keith gaped at the paintings. “Where are we going?”

“A panic room.” She looked from portrait to portrait, trying to find Keith’s. The elhorn they’d told her about rested on a woman’s head like a crown. The copper plate below the frame advertised who had painted the work. She pressed a thumb against the date. Something rumbled inside the walls. “I was informed of its location when I gained the rank of Hani.”

“Useful.” Keith’s anxiety thundered over the bond. She reached for one of the doors-- the blackest one--and wrenched it open.

“In. We have fifteen seconds before it closes.” She placed a hand on his shoulder to lead him in. “I will be outside, waiting for the doctor. Stay in there. It is for your safety.” She paused. “And don’t try to throw up the shufan. It destroys the throat, and possibly the lungs.” Her mental countdown neared the last few seconds. “I’ll come to you soon!” The door ripped from her grip as Keith gaped at her from inside the panic room. It suctioned against the painted metal frame. Only a machine would get it off its hinges, and it’d have to be a special one at that.

The fear in her belly pulled her thoughts from the door. She needed to find the doctor before the poison hurt Keith. Her sandals snapped against the marble floor as she jogged down the hallway.

 

* * *

 

Keith waited in the black room. Small as a shoebox, it fit a kitchenette, a bathroom, and a pair of chairs opposite a couch. No windows let him peer out at the capital. All he had was a single screen built into the obsidian wall. Nothing played on it. He didn’t even know where the remote was-- or if there _was_ a remote.

His work was done. Prorok wouldn’t survive. The rest now relied on the Blade of Marmora. He settled into the chair’s pillow as his throat stung and bled. He prayed the doctor came soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed the chapter! I tried out some new things in it. Next update should be September 5th, and then we're back to a normal schedule! Thank you all for reading. <3
> 
> Also, I'd like to give a shoutout to another Zeith fic! If you've got the time, take a peek at Shelter From A Cold Storm by Saremina.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for some gory stuff in this chapter!

He’d killed someone again. The death, strangely, didn’t get to him. It was the ‘again’ part that did. He didn’t know how many people he’d killed by now:  _ a lot _ felt flippant, but many didn’t carry the same weight. He reached up to massage his temples, as though that’d help the storm raging inside him. 

Prorok hadn’t been a good person. He acted as an extension to Zarkon’s will--he’d been in charge of a dozen purges, and Marmora had told him Prorok ran several harvestings of quintessence. There were billions of lives that bloodied Prorok’s hands. Killing him had saved billions more. The fact that he hadn’t killed through combat shouldn’t matter. A knife in the front killed just like a knife to the back.

Poison, though. He’d never thought himself the type to use poison. He’d heard it called the weapon of the weak. Those without the ability to fight or strike openly against their oppressor used poison. It rankled Keith that he found himself in such a position. Challenging Prorok to a fight in the open was foolish, though. He didn’t know how well Prorok fought, and it’d earn him attention if he won. Marmora needed panic to be sown in secret.

Keith winced as the poison’s acid burned in his stomach. Two sips had been too much. He’d wanted to sell the charade, though. If he’d never had a sip, suspicious and clever minds would look to him as the culprit. He’d done what he could to hide his hand in the matter.

When investigators examined the crime scene, they’d find three things. One, that the entire decanter had been poisoned. Two, that the poison was both a poison and an acid. And three, that nobody had poured in a vial or tablet. A cloud of suspicion would settle over those who’d made, transported, and cared for the shufan, of which there were thousands of potential culprits. Nobody would suspect the silly foreign prince who’d drank the poison too.

“Poison him how you see fit,” Marmora had said as they gave him a single pill. 

Keith wondered if they’d suspected what Keith would do. He’d taken the buffet table’s cup, filled it with snacks, and devoured it as quick as he could. After, he’d slipped the paper cup into his pocket, beside the pill. Then he’d met Zarkon, sidled over to Prorok, and flirted. He remembered the man’s name being passed around as someone who’d been charmed by a dancer days ago. With Keith’s association with elhorn, and the flattery others gave him, Prorok presented an easy target to woo.

He’d played the ignorant foreigner, though he hadn’t expected Prorok to move so quickly to the shufan. What he’d waited for was a chance to direct them to the buffet tables and offer Prorok a drink-- a risk, but if he’d poisoned himself as well, that took a lot of suspicion away. He knew the tradition of the younger pouring drinks for their elders, though Zarkon put little stock in such things. For Prorok, it gave Keith the chance to slip the tablet into the drinks after palming the pill while throwing out his old paper cup. Within seconds, the shufan had become deadly.

And nobody would suspect Prince Caith of having slipped the poison in.

Poison was cowardly. He knew that. The Galra who knew him would be shocked and angry that he’d done it. Not that they would ever know. They’d never find out if Keith had his way. Prorok’s death could be a new mystery that Galra gossiped about but had as many answers as JFK’s assassination.

He wrapped his arms around his middle. The acid in his body burned at his stomach lining. What distressed him more, though, was his tightening throat and twitching lungs. Prorok was another number that rested on his conscience. It felt like the house of his mind creaked and wobbled under the weight of everything that’d happened and everything he’d done. His body had been taken from him. His safety was gone. He’d killed thousands. He’d tortured a single man who’d given him what? Lies, a single password that changed a day after he’d been welcomed into the temple, and a lingering, poisonous feeling that he’d committed a crime that only the worst Galra could.

“It’s okay,” he told himself. He dug his claws into his sides. His thick fur kept them from breaking skin, but he didn’t take any solace in that.  _ You did what was necessary _ . The lie went down his bleeding throat like salt. He’d spent the past months determined not to acknowledge the horrible things around him, or the crimes he’d participated in. 

Adran had been a few years older than him. His allegiance made them enemies, but what kind person tortured people? What did it make Keith to have cut and ripped at Adran’s prone form? What came to mind, as he remembered the acid-green blood and whimpers, was Shiro’s face. Shiro, who despite everything he’d endured, had never tortured anyone. Not even Sendak, who’d almost killed everyone and hurt Shiro and Lance. All it’d taken for Keith to do it was a bit of pressure and Volux’s calm voice in his ears. 

He wasn’t Keith Kogane anymore. Not really. He was a hybrid, some sort of semi-magical abomination of who he’d once been and what he’d been twisted into among the Galra. Caith fit him better than his original name. It was Galran, and Caith was used to luxury and Palace intrigue. More than that, Caith endured slights and misfortunes with a smile.

He also swung a reaper’s scythe through those around him. In the panic room he’d been brought to, he heard nothing but his own breaths and the faint whine of machines working. He didn’t hear bombs or screams. Maybe the Blade hadn’t started yet. They said it might take some time for the attacks to start-- Marmora hadn’t elaborated past that, and Keith knew asking would only get him a shrug. 

The simple goal lessened his fears about killing Prorok. The attacks were to be coordinated throughout Gal: Marmora had mentioned a need to steal files from government buildings, destroy military equipment, and investigate closed-off areas. Prorok’s death was meant to distract and push the Emperor’s forces into disarray. When they rushed to the capital to prevent any attacks, the Blade would charge desert outposts. When the military hurried to save the outpost, the capital, Vrikka, would be raided by Blade operatives.

The information they were after seemed simple enough. They wanted as many details as possible about the Voice. Killing her was no easy task already, but her incorporeal nature posed a special challenge.

Prorok dying served many purposes: it alarmed the Galra, and it removed a man who’d engaged in dozens of atrocities over his career. “He’s no hero,” Marmora had said, grim as a dark sky. “Think of him as a tool for the Emperor. Not bright nor charming, simply blunt enough to bash in an enemy’s head and heavy enough to do the damage. The Emperor’s unleashed Prorok on a hundred planets. It’s made him a hero to the ignorant and a deterrent to any who wish to threaten the Empire’s more brutal workings.”

Acidic poison, though, seemed excessive. A few drops left Keith shivering in pain. Keith suspected that, when a pathologist opened up Prorok, they’d find his innards a liquefied mess. Even the bone of his jaw and spine would be reduced to powder and slime.

The machine inside the door ground into action. The thick metal casing dulled some of the sound, but Keith’s sensitive Galran ears picked up the muffled clinks and rumbles. He watched, silent, as the door swung in. A Galra dressed in neat black uniform and Volux waited on the other side.

“A doctor?” he croaked.

The Galra man nodded swiftly as he hurried in. “How much burning is there?” He placed a little case to the side and flicked open the latch. Vials and creams and little trinkets for examination were on display.

Volux closed the door behind them and leaned against the surface. “Caith. Speak.”

“I’d really rather not.” His voice crackled and snapped, thick with phlegm and blood. “It’s like a little fire. It hurts, but it’s not choking me.”

“Yet,” the doctor muttered. He opened Keith’s mouth and picked a flashlight from his bag. A tongue depressor-- made of cold metal-- was inserted. The doctor squinted down Keith’s throat, as far as he could, at least. “It’s raw as fresh meat. Volux, pass a swab. I’ll need to test the lingering poison to see how much damage it’ll cause if it comes back up.”

Volux picked through the case like a bird sorting through twigs for a worm. When they found a swab, they held it pinched between their forefingers. “Is this it?” they asked, as though it could be anything else.

The doctor jabbed it past Keith’s gag reflex. Keith choked and grabbed for his throat. When the doctor ripped the swab back up, it was coated in slimy green blood. Keith tried to focus on breathing as the doctor dunked the swab into a vial. 

It turned an azure blue. Keith stared at it. “What’s that mean?”

The doctor returned to his bag, digging through the contents. “It’s more acidic than I thought. Having you expel it orally would worsen the damage. We need to neutralize the acid before we can even think about your recovery.”

“What’s the neutralizing agent?” Keith reached to his throat and pressed his fingers against the fur. His skin radiated a volcanic heat, and his neck felt tender to the touch. It was already swelling. If the neutralizing agent worked, Keith wouldn’t be shocked if the doctor had to slather his throat in various creams and ointments. Swallowing a bottle of Galran Neosporin didn’t appeal.

The doctor pulled out a little chunk of rock that fit neatly in this palm. With his other hand, he dug his claws in and took a small fragment. After that, it went into a vial of purple liquid. With quick, snapping motions, he shook the vial. The rock, more porous and crumbly than Keith had assumed, melted into the liquid.

Was it charcoal? Keith didn’t know what medical charcoal looked like, or how it was administered. Asking would only hurt his throat more anyway. When the doctor offered the vial to him, Keith’s hand already waited.

“Small sips,” the doctor said. “It’ll taste disgusting, but it’ll help with the acid.  _ Do not _ throw it up.”

It couldn’t taste that bad, he thought. The vial was twice as thick as his thumb and as long as his middle finger. It wasn’t a lot. He could gulp it all in one go and not feel strain. It smelled of dirt and grime when he lifted it to his mouth and he grimaced. Volux watched him behind the mask. The doctor crouched, tense, as though ready to snap Keith’s jaw shut. 

Keith took a sip. It tasted like nothing, at first. Maybe a bit earthy, like some Galran foods. The rock had dissolved well-- while some grit got stuck in the corners of his mouth, most went down without a fuss. “It’s not bad--”

It was bad. The aftertaste grabbed his senses and shook until his head spun. He heaved, as though about to vomit; the doctor grabbed him by the shoulders, and reached up with his right hand to clamp down on Keith’s jaw. “ _ Swallow _ ,” the man commanded. 

Spit gushed in his mouth, as though his body were as eager to get rid of the charcoal as his brain was. The grit washed away, down his throat. “That’s… That’s  _ horrible _ .”

Volux snorted by the door. “The doctor was not playing games, Prince Caith. Drink the rest of it so that I may heal your throat.”

Keith took a shuddering breath. The tips of his fingers shook as he held the vial. Another drink sounded as bad as drinking the poisoned shufan. You’re being ridiculous, he told himself. The acid was far worse than something that tasted like eating dirt. He lifted the vial again and took a pennyful of the drink.

It didn’t taste any better that time, nor did it improve on the way to the final sip. When he finished, his stomach cramped and his muscles kept tensing and releasing, as though trying to expel the horrific charcoal milkshake. The doctor patted him on the shoulder. 

“It’s always nasty to get that stuff down.” The doctor took the vial, screwed a cap on, and put it back in the medical case. “You endured it pretty well. Now, there’ll be some side-effects with the bowels and digestion for the next few days. Cramps, odd coloured stool--”

“The Prince can be informed later,” Volux said. “I, personally, could do without hearing about his stool. The poison is neutralized, yes?” The doctor nodded, and Volux pushed off from the door. “Then I will take over from here. Your service will be noted, Grem, by both the Emperor and Voice. The Prince’s gratitude should be remembered as well.

The doctor eyed Keith, and Keith wondered what the man plotted. “I do this not for glory, but for the betterment of others.” The doctor lightly touched Keith’s cheek. Keith froze. Another suitor was not what he needed-- “You’re lucky it didn’t burn through,” the doctor said, and Keith tried not to feel like an idiot. “The poison should be neutralized. If you feel any burning sensations in your body, tell one of your staff, Your Grace. I don’t believe any of it would have had time to digest, but every doctor is wrong at some point.”

The doctor left, leaving him and Volux alone in the room. “You thought he was flirting with you.” Volux sounded amused. “You’re a vain man, Keith. It’d charming if you didn’t embarrass yourself so often.”

Keith grit his teeth. “Just heal my throat before the damage worsens.”

“The poison is neutralized, remember?” Volux sat on the table across from Keith. “If I touch your cheek, will you think me smitten? Or have I escaped your desires?”

_ You wanted him to be attracted to you _ , was the message. Keith glared. “Shut up. You’re  _ you _ . I’m more likely to be attracted to a salt wall than I am you.” Volux didn’t even register as person anymore. The Druid seemed like a force of nature, permanently nagging and sneering, but helpful in unexpected ways, filled with information. 

“Good,” Volux muttered. “We’d both be in for a world of trouble if you chased me.” They reached up to clasp Keith’s neck in their palms. “No screams. Try not to squirm.”

It didn’t hurt. His neck grew warmer, like a tea kettle, but he didn’t unleash a whistle like one. He stared over Volux’s shoulder as the Druid chanted and sang in a language Keith knew was Old Galran. 

What did he really know about Volux? The Druid had, when he first arrived, expressed an intense interest in Keith. They’d visited his cell, spoken to him, and taught him things that Keith, by turns, suspected and knew Volux shouldn’t. Why? Volux didn’t seem the flighty type. A fascination causing disloyalty or questionable choices wasn’t Volux’s type of behaviour.

Keith folded his hands in his lap. Volux’s mask hid every feeling it could display, but their voice always betrayed them. If Keith played the game right, he might walk away wiser. He didn’t know how long he had Volux alone, though. If Hyladra or Thace or Zarkon himself turned up, it’d necessitate a swift end to Keith’s probing questions. 

So the plan had to be simple. As his throat itched and stung, the quintessence from Volux tickling like a feather, Keith plotted. The treatment lasted a minute before Volux went silent and pulled back. They didn’t head for the door, blessedly.

“How is it feeling now?”

Keith reached up and rubbed at his voice box. “Still rough,” he said, his voice demonstrating it, “but a lot better. Thank you.”

Volux nodded stiffly. “Good, Then I shall take my leave.” They stood and began to turn on their heel.

“Should you?” Keith asked. “Being alone seems like a bad idea. And how much quintessence did you give me? If I get taken by the Voice, I’m going to be  _ mad _ .”

Volux stopped mid-step. “You’ll have bigger problems if you get taken.” They sighed and turned back to look at Keith. “You’re still distrustful of quintessence after all this time?”

“It hasn’t earned trust.” Keith fell back into his seat. “It’s healed me and hurt me by turns, and it comes from the Voice, who’s been questionable in her intentions.” He eyed Volux. “Though I guess I shouldn’t slander her too much. You and Zarkon have a lot of faith in her.”

“At least you have the wisdom to realize that.” Volux returned to their perch on the table. “You seem unbothered by what you witnessed-- or your own poisoning.”

“I’m alive, aren’t I? And panicking makes the body spread the poison faster.” Keith rubbed his neck. “I’m wary about the infiltration. There are a lot of folks who could have poisoned the shufan. Any of them could be Clarion or some other faction.”

“The suspects are numerous, yes.” Volux crossed their arms. They tried to project haughty confidence, but Keith smelled the insecurity. Volux was just as afraid as Keith pretended to be. “That the poison would get to the Moonbreak festivities--let alone kill Commander  _ Prorok _ of all people--is worrying. Hyladra made the proper choice by sending you here.”

“Has anything else happened?” Keith eyed Volux. “You’re unsettled. More than I’ve ever seen you before, and I’ve seen you after I tortured someone while you watched.”

Volux laughed. The sound, rough and sharp, startled Keith. “There have been rebel movements.” The tone of the admission was almost worse than Volux’s laugh. It came out shaky and fearful, as though the rebels marched to kill Volux. “I suspect the assassination of Prorok was coordinated by said rebels. Whether they meant to target him or simply any notable, I don’t know. But your death may have been just as good as Prorok’s.”

Keith hunched in on himself. “Comforting.” He rubbed his temples. “But it’s not what’s got you worried. What rebels are we talking about?”

“I shouldn’t say.” Volux looked away. “Your curiosity is appreciated, but this is for the Emperor to tell you at his own discretion. I am merely a Druid.”

“Merely?” Keith raised a brow. “You’ve conducted so much of what I’ve seen about the Voice. I find it hard to believe you have no influence or power.”

“And what would you know about Druids?” Volux snapped. “You’ve played a temple tender and the buffoon. You’re still an outsider, no matter what the Emperor might tell you. Or your idiot of a Hani.”

Keith stared at Volux. “I’m not taking the bait. I want to know, Volux, why you think so little of yourself. You’ve been haughty and condescending since we met. Why the sudden humility? Or the self-deprecation? We’ve known each other for I don’t even know how long at this point. You can speak to me.”

“So you can tell the Emperor, your Hani, and every servant you see? I’ll take my chances under the wrath of my own scorn.”

Keith frowned. “And what secrets have I shared with others?”

“You told Hyladra.” Volux’s mask hid their expression, but their intense gold eyes glared out from the slits in the mask. “When she confronted you after you dealt with Adran, you told her everything without asking. You  _ brought her _ to us. I risked so much for Thace, and then you dragged him down anyway.”

“It was going to come out,” Keith said. “Hyladra helped the mission. She kept it from Zarkon until the time was right. But it was inevitable that Thace would get burned by it. Wrin wasn’t worth the effort he expended. And you’re fine. He’s fine too. He’s been invited to the Palace since Central Command. When I saw him, he looked content.”

“Thace wears masks like a Druid.” Volux seemed to deflate, though. “I hate you for it. It is unbecoming of a Druid to be so invested in petty matters like this, but I feel like you betrayed our confidence.”

_ I did what I thought was right _ . He didn’t say it, though. That wasn’t what Volux wanted to hear: they already knew he thought like that. “I am sorry I made you feel like that.” Volux looked up from their shoes. “I can’t take it back. I don’t know what would happen if I could anyway. But I want you to know, Volux, that you’ve been one of the few constants since I got captured. I’ve never known what to make of you, but you’ve helped so much. I don’t know how else to repay you other than listening to your worries.”

“Sweet words and kinder promises.” Something had changed, though. Either Keith’s words had been right or they’d worn Volux down. “The life of a Druid is lonely. Even among ourselves, we cannot speak of what we see. Only to those who have delved into the mysteries of the Voice deeper can understand what we see properly. And you want me to talk to you about what worries me. If you weren’t such an object of fascination to Her, I’d be insulted.”

Keith shrugged. “An outsider’s perspective is worth a lot. And I think you’re clever enough to know what’s best for yourself. Something’s got its claws in you, whether from the Voice or from earthly matters, and most animals need help removing a thorn from their paw.”

“I’ve seen shadows,” Volux said, “in the strangest of places.” Keith’s mouth snapped shut. “Behind people, in mirrors, even inside myself. I am haunted, and I think I know why.” Keith leaned forward, though he kept silent as Volux continued. “Tell me, Keith. What do you think would turn quintessence to shadow?”

Unease stole over Keith’s mind. Volux couldn’t know. “Death, maybe.”

“There are a thousand deaths a Galra must go through before the Voice speaks to them.” Volux recited it like a quote. “I feel there is one death I did not face before I was initiated. I suspect I will face it soon.” They shook their head. “But that is enough. You know what is troubling me now, and you are healed. Let me rest for a moment, Keith, and then I can return to my business.”

What Volux had told him didn’t mean much, though-- at least on the surface. Why would they be seeing shadows? Were the shadows messages from the Voice, and did they have anything to do with Keith’s plotting? Keith didn’t think the Voice had enough awareness to spot a threat from an individual, and Marmora had made it clear that the Blade divorced themselves from the Voice en masse, so she couldn’t pick it up from that group of minds.

Volux could be stressed and seeing things. While Keith didn’t claim to know the Druid well, he knew them better than most. And while Volux had a sharp tongue and sharper mind, that didn’t mean that their brain couldn’t play tricks on them. They’d gone through the same things Keith had, albeit in different ways, and Keith himself felt pulled apart at the seams. 

The thoughts that whispered in the back of his mind were almost as poisonous as what he’d slipped into the shufan. He knew what Marmora needed, yes. But the idea of turning so thoroughly on a person who’d helped him… He didn’t fear gods, nor did he fear condemnation from the average person. He feared himself and the anger and viciousness he knew waited inside him. His time with the Galra had bred a monster. 

Maybe this was how he could still stand himself, he thought. It wasn’t him who’d tortured Adran: it was the monster inside him. It wasn’t him who’d poisoned Prorok and played the worried, wide-eyed prince. It was the monster who’d slipped into his skin and cried crocodile tears as Prorok choked on his melted flesh and blood. 

That monster looked at Volux and their nightmares and thought  _ useful _ . Was this monster what the coldness had hid? He didn’t remember having thoughts like this as a child. Maybe it was only his time with the Galra. He hoped it was. But that didn’t help him now; it didn’t take away the predatory thoughts or the oily feeling that stole over him, nor did it illuminate his soul and mind in a soothing light. Blame didn’t matter. 

What did was that he heard the monster and agreed with it. Marmora needed a Druid to destroy the Voice. Volux had shown weakness and a strange flash of trust in Keith. That could be exploited. The problem was that it’d likely destroy Volux to be involved in the Voice’s death. And if they didn’t get involved after Keith’s manipulations, Keith’s plan would be shared with Haggar and Zarkon within minutes. 

So he shouldn’t do it.  _ It’s necessary _ , the monster hissed.  _ If the Voice needs to die, they’re your only option as a Druid. Marmora said the Blade’s had no luck turning Druids in the decade since they concocted their plan. Volux is the perfect choice! _

Not today, he thought back. Not ever. He focused on leaning back in his chair and closed his eyes. When Volux stood, it was in silence that they promptly broke.

“I feel I should warn you of their arrival,” they said. “If only because you’ve seen the consequences of their actions.”

Keith opened his eyes and raised an eyebrow. “The Clarion?”

“No.” Volux watched Keith, as though picking him apart. “The Sorrowsingers.”

Keith stiffened. “What?”

“They’ll be coming after the Commander’s death, especially if there are attacks.” Volux looked away. “While I believe the Emperor will shield you from their scrutiny, less can be said for your servants and lower-ranked friends. I tell you this only so you can prepare yourself for the cloud of fear that will soon rest over the Palace. If someone seems afraid of the Sorrowsingers, Paladin,  _ stay away from them _ . The Sorrowsingers aren’t perfect instruments of the Voice’s will, but they are close.”

_ And anyone who’d fear them would be dangerous _ . Keith doubted that, but he didn’t say so. He nodded at Volux and thanked them. The room’s door swung open, and the Druid left him to his thoughts, which Keith hated. What now? The Sorrowsingers were coming. Kymin would be terrified. Would they question Hyladra? Would his servants reveal anything they’d noticed? How would Marmora’s plants fare?

“Fuck,” he breathed. If Zarkon didn’t intervene when they came to Keith, he’d be fucked too. And his servants… What had they noticed? If any had found the kralick folder and said nothing, he’d be fucked. He still didn’t know if Zarkon had been informed of his frantic search to hide the folder. If a Marmora agent ran the security on his room, would they reveal his actions under Sorrowsinger investigation? He should have asked Marmora about it when he’d been told about the cameras.

He rubbed his face and tried to find some certainty in his situation. The Sorrowsingers were coming. Volux had revealed weakness that could be exploited, even if Keith would hate himself for it. There were unknowns-- what did Zarkon know, what did Hyladra know, what did his servants know?--but those could be overcome with patience and proper acting. Zarkon at least pretended to adore him, and that likely left his servants keeping quiet to avoid causing a problem.

But the Sorrowsingers wouldn’t care about appearances. He needed to question his servants, find out what they knew, and then have Zarkon protect them too. Without tipping his hand that he was up to  _ questionable _ things.

He hated everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update is September 13th! I'll see you all then. <3


	14. Chapter 14

_ “I hate this,” Lance said. He’d collapsed into a chair in the bridge. “There’s nothing to do.” _

_ Pidge and Hunk worked away at the controls beside Allura and Coran. Shiro sat beside Lance on a different chair. “I’d offer a to spar, but we’re needed here. And yes, we are, before you argue. They might need another pair of hands.” _

_ “Neither of us specialized, though.” Lance leaned far back to stare at the ceiling. “Well, in anything other than piloting. And the Castle won’t accept us piloting anyway.” _

_ “Stop sulking,” Pidge threw back. “If we do this right, there’ll be plenty of opportunity for you to fight. That’s what you’re itching for, isn’t it?” _

_ “I wouldn’t mind a ship of Galra to fight.” Lance smirked and stretched, cracking his knuckles. “We could probably get some good information from their computers.” _

_ Shiro laughed, quiet and dark. “But we have to get there first. You can take a nap if you want. Just don’t sleep too deeply.” He stood and walked to where the others were congregated.  _

_ “And how would I even stop that?” Lance muttered, but he leaned back and closed his eyes anyway. _

_ Pidge brightened at Shiro’s approach. “I think we’ve managed to get by their outpost radars.” She motioned to the screen of planets, stars, and colonies. The tangled web formed a series of guards and watchers that the Empire relied on. When little enemy flies got caught, their struggles pulling at the web; then the spider would creep out, its long legs as curious as its stomach was hungry. _

_ Shiro hated it. His instinct was to look for a route into the centre, but nothing ever presented itself. The Galra had had ten thousand years to master defense. Any holes had long since been found, whether by the Galra or enemies, and then promptly covered up. In desperation, Team Voltron had turned to Altean technology to worm their way through a quiet edge of the web. _

_ “We’re only a few ticks in,” Hunk called out from the station’s interior. He’d stuffed himself in there three hours back and Shiro knew Hunk would be sore for the next week because of it. “If they’re going to find us, it’s going to be when we pass that colony, uh… Ven-X56. Right? I think that’s it.” He thumped his head against a metal panel and cursed. “Someone pass me a soldering iron. One of the smaller ones. Pidge, your invisibility modifications are roasting everything in here.” _

_ Shiro picked out the iron and knocked on the station. “Don’t roast yourself either, Hunk.” Hunk’s hand jabbed out, grabbing, and Shiro gave it to him. “We need you in one piece." _

_ “I’m fine.” More heat billowed out from the interior. The soldering iron sparked and crackled as Hunk worked. “I’ve gone through worse back on Earth. You know how hot it gets in Samoa? Especially when you don’t have air conditioning?” He let out a low whistle. “I’ve passed out before, when I first started going there to visit family.” _

_ "Please don’t pass out,” Pidge said. “Just… don’t.” _

_ Hunk’s shrug was sensed more than seen or heard. Allura broke in before anyone could reply. “We’re passing close to Ven-X56. Hunk, do whatever you need to to keep the modules going. I’m taking us in and out as quickly as possible.” _

_ The view from the Castle’s windows shifted, as though the universe had burst into a pirouette. Planets slid across the screen. A sun blurred into a meteor. When the view straightened, a colony the size of New York came into view. They were dipping under it.  _

_ Shiro turned to look away. His eyes met another pair. They widened, and his jaw dropped. “ _ **_Keith_ ** _?” _

He woke to Gryva grumbling. “He ate part of the salt wall again, didn’t he?”

“It,” Kiya said mildly. “We don’t know its gender. … Do dendin have genders?”

Heida laughed in a burst which died off to silence as Gryva likely turned her displeased gaze on her. “I think they’ve got their own gender. All of them lay eggs.” Keith lifted his head, yawning, and heard Rime chitter. “Ah, its master awakens. How do you fare, Prince Caith?”

He was in his room. Shro and the others were gone. Everything was warm, even his body. He yawned again, his jaw cracking, and he blinked out the bleariness in his eyes. “Tired. How long have I been asleep?”

“Half a morn,” Gryva said. “Considering the events of last night, not long. You returned in a frightening state, my Prince. Glassy-eyed, gruff as an old man, and fairly scared. I sent you to bed with some milk and a sweet, if you’ll pardon my treatment.”

He waved a hand at her. “No, you don’t need a pardoning. I think that’s what I needed.” He pulled himself up. “Have the investigations into the Commander’s death revealed anything?”

Gryva frowned and shook her head. “I haven’t heard anything. Gossip, yes, but hardly anything illuminating. Your fellow notables have fled into the shadows and their far-off homes to hide from the killer.”

Keith blinked, as though surprised. “That seems… unusual. Central Command was attacked and that didn’t frighten them away from the Emperor.”

“But the attack was thwarted,” Gryva said, “and there were no following attacks. I don’t know if I should tell you this yet, but you’re a strong man. After the Commander’s death, there were attacks across Gal. Some were…  _ successful _ . In varying forms. It’s spooked the lords and ladies and such. The soldiers remain steadfast, however.”

Of course they would. He wondered if Gryva knew the Sorrowsingers were coming. Their arrival would frighten the courtiers and fools at the Palace far more than the Blade’s movements. “And the Emperor allowed them to leave?”

“He gave them leave, yes.” Gryva’s lips pursed. “You don’t approve.”

“Some of them may have been involved. And--” He broke off. Should he say anything? It didn’t matter, though. She probably already guessed. “You know what the attacks will bring to the Palace.”

Gryva slumped, her expression twisted. “... The Sorrowsingers. I’d hoped you wouldn’t know of their existence yet.”

“I made certain to learn as much as I could about the Voice during my time with the Druids.” Keith rolled out of bed. Rime met his feet when they landed on the smooth stone floor. It let him pick it up and even spared him bites when he cradled it. “I guess the Emperor can always bring them back if needed.” Or it could be a test to see who was loyal. Those who fled declared that they had secrets to hide, after all. 

“Every Galra worthy of their heritage will follow his lead.” Gryva looked grim. “Prince, what do you know of the Sorrowsingers? I feel it my duty to prepare you for their arrival, yet it seems I have been preempted by the Druids.”

“I know they search for disloyalty and treason. Their methods are unnerving to the uninitiated.” Keith stroked Rime’s stomach. It snoozed in his arms. “With the powers I’ve seen the Druids wield, I can only imagine what the Sorrowsingers are like. What concerns me, Gryva, is not the Sorrowsingers examining me. I have nothing to hide. The Druids have scoured every inch of my mind to see my heart’s intentions. I fear for you three. If any of you have had doubts or seen things that have caused you troubles, tell me now, and I will speak to the Sorrowsingers on your behalf.”

It was likely too blunt to get results. The trio watched him, Gryva and Kiya through shuttered eyes. Heida spoke first. “I have seen nothing, Prince Caith, and I have attended service and offered my heart to the Voice. If you fear that you’ve led me astray, you have not.” Her smile looked genuine. 

Keith refused to take anything at face-value, but he smiled back. “It heartens me to hear that. And what of you, Kiya?”

Kiya’s brow had furrowed and their lips thinned. “Prince…” They looked down. “I don’t go to service often? And I sometimes think bad things about other notables. My mother always told me I had a suspicious mind, and I look at everything through that.”

“Who are you suspicious of?” Keith asked. “I will never tell anyone who you distrust, and I’m sure Heida and Gryva will be the same.”

A moment of silence, and then: “Druid Volux,” they burst out. “I-- something seems  _ wrong _ with how they behave toward you. It’s so disrespectful!”

He wasn’t sure  _ who _ he’d expected, but Volux’s name hadn’t even crossed his mind. The familiarity he had with the Druid felt natural after so many months of conspiracies with them. How did he defuse Kiya’s suspicions without hinting at Volux and his’ past, or condescending to them?

“Druids are strange Galra.” Keith ran a finger over Rime’s nose; the dendin snuffled under his touch. “Their minds work oddly, and their understanding of how the world works is… dimmed.” He’d never say such a thing to Volux. It’d earn him a swift rebuke, and Keith would be forced to confess he didn’t believe the accusation. Volux knew the ways and wants of the public well. “Druid Volux’s familiarity can be a shocking experience when encountered, but they have seen me among the Blackmouths. There, things are much more informal. Maybe Druid Volux behaves as they do in an attempt to help me feel comfortable.”

Kiya frowned. “... It would be kind of them, I guess. I still hold it against them, though. It makes others whisper.”

“Whispers are breezes to the wind of scandal,” Keith said. “Let them talk, and they’ll eventually tire of it. By next month, it will be forgotten.”

Kiya sighed. “Recent events will likely silence the gossip anyway.” They gave Rime a gloomy stare. “I still don’t like them.”

Keith guessed she referred to Volux, the gossip,  _ and _ recent events. ‘Them’ was such a vague word sometimes. “And you’ll never have to. Their visits will lessen for now anyway. My advice, Kiya, would be to go to service a few times this week-- and you have my blessing for any time off--just to fend off any scrutiny. I doubt you’ll be the only one suddenly appearing at services.”

Kiya barked out a laugh. “If the whole Palace isn’t there, I’ll be shocked.” They stood, brushing at their clothes. “Heida, come. Let Ms. Gryva speak to the Prince.”

“I’m not an animal,” Heida snapped, but she followed nonetheless. She closed the door behind her as Kiya picked up a jaunty tune to whistle. The wood muffled the sound until it reminded Keith of a chorus of birds chirping.

“You want to know my crimes now.” Gryva stood still as a windless day, her arms crossed and a frown on her face. “Those two think you walk on clouds, never weighed down by a single crime. But I am far wiser, Prince Caith. You’re concerned about what we may reveal.”

Keith blinked at her lazily. “That’s a strong accusation, Ms. Gryva.”

“I’ve served notables three times your age,” she said, “and who had twice the cunning. I like you, Prince Caith, but I am no fool.” She reached over and pulled out his desk chair. She perched on its seat’s edge. “Let us blow away the smoke on your motives. If I feel the Sorrowsingers may find anything  _ questionable _ , I will do what I can to divert from it.”

And what could be done to divert the Sorrowsingers? Maybe, after millennia, some Galra had found out how to hide things. It would make sense for any sort of Palace intrigue. If Zarkon could send out Sorrowsingers and plumb the Palace’s notables and servants for secrets, he would never be threatened by those like the Blade or Clarion. And who knew more secrets than servants? They were used as pawns and spoke to one another. Kiya and Heida were young and flighty, but Gryva had had decades to figure out the mood of the Palace. 

If anyone knew about the Blade’s infiltration, she would. There was no way she could know his involvement, though. He hoped, at least. 

“I am here only to follow the Voice--”

Gryva snorted. “No Blackmouth just returns to something their forebears abandoned. You’ve grown up with stories about the Voice’s evils. The Emperor should have been a demon to you, yet you fawn and flirt with him like he’s descended from the moon and sun. I do not say this unkindly, Prince, but you asked for honesty.”

He had, in a way. Rime stirred, as though sensing his unease. He stroked its stomach and it drifted back into dreams. “The Emperor knows my reasons for being here. While propriety says I cannot share them with you, I promise to the Voice herself that I speak the truth.”

“I believe that. The Druids would know it.” Gryva sighed. “I have only suspicions. You are overly familiar with your Hani, which says you’ve met her before the Palace, which is impossible as she was on Central Command. Her quick rising through the ranks would be explained, however, if she was involved in your conversion. Then there is the company of Druid Volux, the strange ignorance of Galran history that even the Blackmouths would know, and your own behaviour. I cannot make sense of it all. I have no desire to, so long as you are safe, as are the other servants and my career.”

Gryva was an incredibly  _ practical _ woman. Keith shrugged. “You have nothing to fear. None of my actions will reflect poorly on you.” A lie, but maybe Gryva would buy it with his confident tone. “I don’t know what secrets you have of your own, like how to prevent the Sorrowsingers from looking too deeply, but I promise mine will cause no harm.”

Gryva bought it. Her features softened, and he knew she’d developed some affection for him. Why, he didn’t know. How much, he couldn’t tell. “Then it’s an understanding, my Prince. I will go tend to your breakfast. All I ask is that you groom Rime. It’s leaving little moltings here and there.”

So it was. He ran his fingers through its mass of feathers, and little ones the size of one of his claws puffed out. With Gryva gone and him alone, he started to run his claws deeper. By the time he finished, a small cloud of white feathers had amassed beside him. He used a handkerchief to bundle it up. Rime bounded around the floor, hissing and chittering. It nipped at his feet while he dressed, oblivious to the memories churning through his mind. He’d seen Voltron and Shiro. The others were coming, though why, he didn’t know. They at least seemed to be careful about it.

Food and company greeted him outside his room.The servants were nervous, if forcing themselves to be in good spirits. One’s smile seemed glued on their face. The fear in their eyes made their expression mask-like. Keith offered them some food from his plate-- little pieces of fruit, and a slice of thick, tempeh-texture cheese. The servant took it, a sign of how unsettled the room was.

Were the Sorrowsingers already at the Palace? He didn’t dare ask those around him. He relied, instead, on the bond between him and Hyladra. Her nerves were keen, and jumped like a heart’s frantic beating every few minutes. She wasn’t in his apartment. Maybe, he thought, she was speaking to the Palace’s guards about what had happened yesterday. Or she watched the Sorrowsingers file in, like Keith had on Central Command. He almost reached out to her. The thought that he’d startle her or make things worse occurred to him, so he kept his distance. His own anxiety was enough to deal with anyway.

Gryva knew how to hide from the Sorrowsingers’ search. Kiya and Heida knew--at least from what they said--nothing. There was no reason Zarkon would unleash the Sorrowsingers on Keith. The Blade would likely know by now that the Sorrowsingers were coming or had arrived, if they hadn’t already expected it.

As usual, it left him with nothing to do and everything to wait for.  _ What now? _ his mind asked.  _ Nothing _ , reason said. Wait, and wait, and wait some more. He couldn’t even leave his apartments unless he wanted to invite a thousand questions, both subtle and overt. He stared out the window, the familiar impatience from the start of his residency at the Palace returning. An hour passed before he snapped.

“If it isn’t too much trouble,” he said in his affected soft voice, “would it be possible to meet with Kymin of the Yexin? I don’t wish to disturb Druid Volux about my questions, and Kymin has become adept with matters of the Voice from my understanding. He seemed so at dinner days ago, at least.”

A pair of servants hurried into action like Keith had asked for water after a week in the desert. One engaged a side room’s terminal, while the other rushed into the halls. Keith knew nothing about where Kymin had been housed, but he didn’t doubt that the man wandered and hid from prying eyes. Kymin praised the Voice and Emperor, yes. A lingering shame, though, and an almost-doubtful aura followed him. 

“Where would you wish to speak, my Prince?” the terminal servant asked when he returned. “And at what time? Kymin of the Yexin is eager to accept your offer, but he requires further details.”

“On my room’s balcony,” he said, “as soon as he wishes.” The balcony was best. It was private enough for the persona of Caith to drop, yet not private enough to elicit gossip. “The table of foods can be wheeled to the balcony when he comes, if that is all right?”

The servant blinked. “Of course, my Prince.” He wawued and hurried away, back to the terminal. 

Kymin came shortly after. He wore heavy robes and sandals, and carried a small bag of something unknown at his side. When Keith ushered him into his room and then on to the balcony, Kymin didn’t resist. He didn’t even ask questions. They sat under an awning as Vrika buzzed below, the morning sun already growing to the afternoon blaze. The Galran citizens would soon go underground until evening. Some would go to service. Others would sleep or work. When the sun set, Vrikka would surge back to life, its streets full of Galra and the buildings packed with revellers.

For now, though, Kymin and Keith waited high above the scene. Kymin picked at a cup of nuts. “You wanted to talk.”

“I did.” Keith leaned back in the wooden chair. Plastic had a tendency to melt in Gal’s long days, and metal scorched any who’d dare touch it unless night had come. “I want to talk about the Sorrowsingers.”

Kymin stiffened. “I don’t.” The sharp, clipped tones were familiar, but they vanished in the next sentence. “The Sorrowsingers should be allowed to conduct their business on innocent minds. From those, they best find the truth.”

Keith sighed. He needed to figure a way past the automated replies the Sorrowsingers had hammered into Kymin. “You know as well as I do they won’t question me. The Emperor won’t allow it-- too much is tied up in my identity remaining secret. I want to know, Kymin, what I have to fear for others. They-- they took you and you didn’t come back the same. And I never would have guessed that the Galra did things like that, or that you harboured doubts enough for them to have done what they did.”

“Rot is easy to hide beneath a coat of paint.” Kymin stared out at Vrikka. There had been a strange distant fear in his eyes when their gazes met. “The Sorrowsingers scraped away the taint. New skin is growing over the wound, Caith, but that will take time.”

And it always left scars behind. His own skin itched in sympathy. “How much do you think they’ll find? The Palace seems… decadent. In its own way.”

“Many were found on Central Command. The Palace will be no different.” Kymin shifted in his seat, as though he wanted to bolt back into the apartment and flee to his own rooms. Manners kept him glued to the chair, though. Servants would ask questions if he left, after all. “Are you afraid of them, Keith?”

He noted the name change. Kymin didn’t care about Caith the persona’s opinion and assumed the answers would be different depending on who he asked. It was, in a clinical way, interesting. Did the other Galra he’d known on Central Command think the same?

He let his brow furrow and a frown form on his face. “I’m  _ nervous _ . I still don’t feel comfortable with quintessence manipulation, honestly. Do I fear for those around me? In a sense. I only know that they took you and you have not come back the same. While you believe it’s for the better, you have to understand how unsettling that’d be for someone who didn’t even know the Sorrowsingers existed until a few weeks ago.”

Kymin didn’t dismiss him out of hand. They sat together in silence. Keith picked at food, careful to leave the nuts that Kymin favoured alone. Kymin, meanwhile, dehulled each nut to find the buttery interior that tasted sharp and salty. 

“They won’t question you,” Kymin said. “They are unlikely to question me either, as I have already been cleansed. Hyladra will be spared due to the secrets she has, though your servants won’t be so lucky.”

“Why is she spared?” Kymin blinked at him. “We both assume Hyladra will be spared because she knows the truth about me. It’s partly what’s protecting me as well. Does Zar-- the Emperor have reason to believe that the Sorrowsingers may let slip the information? It’s a strange confession of distrust for a group of Druids who are supposed to find deceit and treason.”

Kymin pursed his lips. “It’s a precaution, I suspect. Treason and disloyalty have appeared everywhere since you arrived, and making a single mistake with your situation would have ramifications for the coming decades, if not centuries.”

_ Centuries _ . He guessed it came from the Lion entangled in the charade. If people knew he was alive and a Galra, the public would have their own opinions, some of them unwise. The Clarion could use it to foment a rebellion against Zarkon’s wiser choice on how to handle the matter of Voltron. 

There had been Druids among the Clarion. A scattered few. Just enough for the Clarion to find weapons and prepare for the unexpected--the exception being Keith’s spying. The Sorrowsingers were different, though. They wielded magics that reshaped the mind. Could they not see the fluctuations in their fellow inquisitors’ minds? 

“Then I should keep my mouth shut,” Keith said, “and my head down.” The water in his glass steamed in the sunlight. It was almost time for the afternoon sun to blaze. “A surprisingly difficult thing to do, I’ve found.”

Kymin laughed, and it was almost like they were on Central Command again, talking about gheron as Kymin drunk himself into the drain. “You were never meant to be ignored.” He stood, his robes weathered around the edges from the sun. “Pray to the Voice for guidance. I have given you all a mortal can.” After, he left Keith on the balcony.

Keith didn’t know what to think. Ideally, it was still a charade on Kymin’s part. But he knew better. The Sorrowsingers had killed the man he’d once known, and he didn’t know how to fix that. He wondered if it was even possible.

Rime greeted him when he returned to the main room. The servants looked relieved; a few were smearing ointments on their toes and footpads, and Keith scolded the dendin as he picked it up. All Rime did was burrow into his arms and heave a great, mighty sigh. “You’re a terror,” he told it. Rime didn’t grace him with a response.

He refused to wait inside his rooms. It took some arguing before Gryva acceded to letting him out, but when she did, Hyladra and Kiya were at either of his sides. Hyladra to defend him-- Kiya to run for help, as they were the fastest member of the household. He’d promised Gryva he wouldn’t venture into isolated corridor or explore the wastes behind the Palace, or even venture too far into the jungle-like gardens.

“Always have four people in sight,” Gryva told Hyladra, “and never let someone touch the Prince.”

Even Hyladra looked unsettled by Gryva’s ferocity. Keith understood where Gryva came from: her charge had almost died through poisoning in one of the safest places on Gal, almost beside the Emperor. The Palace was no longer safe in her eyes and--to be fair--from the stoic faces of every Galra they passed, everyone else agreed with her assessment. 

Black banners hung from the ceiling and walls. Some were marked like the banners he’d seen on Central Command: black interrupted by a single stylized teardrop of white. Smaller panels of cloth had the heraldry of individual Sorrowsingers--considering the Druids’ disdain for past ties, likely symbols of where they’d been trained, or who had trained them. Some of the smaller banners carried kralicks or havas, while others were knives or arrows. The rest were strange symbols, either from Old Galran or the scribblings of a mad mind from long ago.

The Sorrowsingers were nowhere to be seen in the hall. Their banner-carriers, dressed in black armour, waited by each entrance, armed with swords and guns. The guards stared at them as they passed, their gold eyes a vicious glow that rivalled a flame in the night.

Each turn they took down the halls, Keith waited to see one of the Sorrowsingers in their black robes and masks, decorated with the tear drop from the largest banners. None of them appeared. What he did see were furtive whispers in the Palace’s corners. The walk through the Palace meandered through levels and sections. He almost went to the gym before he decided he was too exhausted to do that. He wanted to talk to Volux, mostly. The Druid would understand the Sorrowsingers and might share insight if talked into it. 

The temple’s halls were empty-- but there was a sound, a gentle murmur from one of the side rooms. Out of curiosity, he opened the door a crack, expecting a praying Galra. He found a group of Galra arranged around a burning candle, prayers on their lips and a strange cloudiness that he couldn’t blink away. Hyladra gasped behind him and Keith jerked away from the room as the Galras’ eyes turned on him. He made his apologies and excuses before hurrying away.

“They’re clouding their thoughts,” Hyladra whispered to him.

His eyebrows rose. “That’s possible?” Kiya eyed them like they’d gone mad, but Keith’s curiosity was too great. People were hiding their thoughts in secret. Not unexpected, but the methods were interesting. Could he use it to hide from the Voice? So long as it didn’t hurt his bond with Hyladra, it would be useful.

Hyladra glanced behind them. There was no one else visible in the halls. “If one is willing to shroud their senses and thoughts, yes. It has… consequences. Debilitating ones.”

Could the Sorrowsingers detect it? He almost asked, but temple tenders appeared down the hall, checking each room. He wondered if they searched for those clouding their thoughts. If so, the group would need to finish within minutes. He made a decision, then. “Back,” he said. He spun on his heel and moved with speed. A turn in the corridor shielded them from view of the temple tenders. “Let us spare the notables the embarrassment.” And maybe one would be grateful enough to share a secret or two with him.

He knocked on the door twice before he opened it. Kiya watched him, wide-eyed, as he leaned in and cleared his throat. Smoke-filled vacant eyes turned to look at him. “The temple-tenders are coming,” he told them. “You may wish to clean up before they arrive.” 

It took a moment for the words to sink in before they lurched into action. The candle’s flame was snuffed. Sheets and pillows were grabbed and rushed back to the cabinets they’d been taken from. A pair of Galra tried to fan the smoke about, but they’d never air it out in time. Keith intervened, armed with the knowledge from his time as a temple-tender: he darted into the room and went to one of the cabinets. Yanking the doors open, he searched the back for the ventilation button. It was in the middle, lowering than the centre. When he pressed it, the fans roared into action. He gave it a few seconds to gobble up as much smoke as it could. When he hit the button again, the Galra in the room were bolting from the room. All that was left was a pair of Galra, a man and a woman who held hands. Their eyes were dazed still. 

“Out,” he told them briskly. He flicked off the lights and closed the door behind them. The temple-tenders’ shadows were visible as they ducked into another room. He took hold of the man’s shoulder and steered him away from the scene of the crime. The man didn’t struggle, though he did stumble. By the time the temple-tenders checked the room, they were a dozen halls away from the temple.

The woman had roused slower than the man. “Thank you,” the man managed, though the words left him wobbling on his feet. “We were--” He saw Kiya and broke off. 

“They won’t tell,” Keith said. The man didn’t look wholly convinced, but he did nod.

“I imagine all their fellows are doing the same in private,” the man said grimly. “None of us are criminals, you understand. There are simply secrets that aren’t meant to be shared, not to the eye of the Sorrowsingers. They judge by standards that are simply impossible to meet.”

And if they had a doubting brother or parent, the Sorrowsingers would find them. Keith nodded. “The candle you used--?”

The man eyed him. “... You have the least reason of us all to fear the Sorrowsingers, Prince Caith. But for your curiosity--” He reached into his coat pocket and drew a slender candle. It was the colour of roses in bloom. “Light it, pray, and the Voice will either protect you from your crimes, or leave you to the Sorrowsingers’ mercies.” Keith took it. The wax was cool in his palm. It wasn’t what he’d wanted. Asking the Voice to hide him from the Sorrowsingers was useless when he wanted to hide from the Voice in the first place.

The man then took the woman and hurried away. Kiya stared at the candle. Hyladra said nothing, but Kiya’s expression said much. They were wary and distrustful and perhaps a bit scared. There’d been no way to hide the events from them, though. Voices interrupted their uncomfortable silence. Keith turned to see a shouting man being dragged from the temple’s halls, along with a half dozen others. Those who dragged them wore Sorrowsinger outfits. Keith stuffed the candle into a pocket and prayed Kiya didn’t sell them out.

Kiya remained silent as the group of Galra were dragged through. Keith made sure to paint horror all over his face, as though scandalized. There’d been multiple groups in the temple, then. A temple-tender had likely found one group and launched the search throughout the complex. Why had they all gone at the same time, though? The answer was simple: for all the temple’s centrality to the Palace, it was largely abandoned in the early afternoon, just before services. Galra could meet in secret and then appear at services, looking rosy-fresh and blameless. Their servants would never know, nor would anyone outside their social circle. 

At least, until they got caught. 

Keith returned to his apartments after that. The candle burned in his pocket, and he knew Hyladra would demand to know what the hell he’d been thinking getting involved and why he hadn’t gone to turn in the candle. Keith wasn’t sure himself. Was it paranoia that the Sorrowsingers would come to him anyway? Did he think anyone else could read his mind? He suspected it came to an impulse to prepare for the worst. Everything that could have gone wrong on Central Command had gone wrong, and he’d rarely been prepared for it.

With the candle, he’d learned a way to block out his secrets from prying mortal eyes. That was worth a quick scold. It was worth pretending to dispose of the candle while secreting it away in his rooms, if he could manage that.

The scolding was brief. “What were you  _ thinking _ ?” she demanded the moment the door to his room closed.

“Protection--”

Hyladra threw her hands up in the air. “From what? The Emperor is protecting you and the rest of us! That candle carries more risk than anything else you’ve done. Kiya knows you have it and saw what you did for those notables. What do you think will happen to them when the Sorrowsingers investigate their mind?”

He was still trying to figure out an answer for that. Maybe he’d break off a piece of the candle and turn in the rest. How effective would that leave the candle, though? And what if they asked for the rest? He wished Kiya had never come, but there’d been no way to escape them without a squabble. None of that answered Hyladra, though. He felt the anger and frustration boiling over their bond. 

“I plan on giving it to Zarkon to discuss the Sorrowsingers--”

“ _ Keith _ ,” she said, pained and strained. “I can  _ feel _ your dishonesty. Give me the candle. I don’t know what plan you have brewing, but now is not the time to draw attention. It was bad enough that you rescued those Galra from being found--most of which will be caught anyway when Kiya’s mind is screened.”

If.  _ If _ they were questioned. Gryva could still cloud Kiya’s mind for everyone’s safety. Zarkon might intervene and shield Keith’s entire household. None of that mattered, though, when he was cornered. He reached into his pocket and held out the candle. His neutral expression hid the visible annoyance he felt, but the bond told the truth. 

Hyladra sighed as she took it. “I’m doing this for your own good.”

He needed to find another way to hide his mind. One rogue Sorrowsinger, or any mistakes that turned up in other people’s memories, and he knew he’d end up taken in. With the candle gone, that left two sources as options: the Red Lion and Volux. Could he visit Volux without causing a scene? Not so soon after their last encounter. Thace was an option. He and Volux knew each other, though how and why, he didn’t know.

A stilted silence ensued. Keith returned to the couch as the afternoon sun roasted the Palace’s exterior. Hyladra left him there to turn in the candle to the Emperor, and Keith knew he’d get another lecture, this time from Zarkon. Kiya, though, had seen Hyladra taking the candle out of the room and looked relieved.

He tried not to feel like he was an insect being pinned to a board. His wings were desperately fluttering to escape the coming pin through his abdomen, but every route had been cut off. Zarkon promised, Hyladra promised, Volux promised, but people made promises all the time, and few were ever honoured. Who was to say that the Clarion hadn’t infiltrated the Sorrowsingers too? If they discovered his secrets, they could use them against Zarkon. ‘He harboured an outsider in a Galran form’ would be scandalous at best, ruinous at worst. And what if a loyal Sorrowsinger found out about the Blade and Keith’s meetings? If the Blade’s operatives fucked up, he doubted Zarkon would continue to spare him the Sorrowsingers’ attentions.

That night, he went to a public dinner. The tables were far more empty than he’d ever seen them, and Zarkon wasn’t in attendance. Keyka and Shayan were gone. Prorok’s name wasn’t even mentioned. The only people at the main table were him, Thace, and Kymin. Of the hundreds the dining room could fit, not even half the seats were filled.

Keith tried to talk to them. Rime snoozed in his lap, the only comforting presence in the room. Kymin’s hands had a slight tremour that hadn’t been there before. Thace spoke in clipped tones, his words only variants of ‘yes’ and ‘no’, or even just sighs. After the third exchange, Keith gave up on talking to them. When the meal ended, Rime had eaten its fill of fruit. Hyladra waited for him at the entrance, her expression still grim. Their bond had chilled to a night’s embrace. He didn’t know how to fix it without lying more.

The idea struck him, then, that he could invite Thace in private to talk, maybe at Thace’s rooms. There’d be no need to alert Gryva or Kiya or the others. Only Hyladra would know, and for all the tension, he knew she’d be fine with him asking Thace for advice. He quickly walked after Thace who seemed to hurry from the area. Thace kept glancing around, as though worried about people following. Keith hesitated and stopped. Hyladra came up beside him, frowning. Her own eyes were glued to Thace.

“We should just call out, Caith,” she whispered. Her whisper was at odds with her message, and he felt the same curious confusion in her that he felt in himself.

Keith touched her hand. “Let’s go.” Thace hurried down another hall, one that branched away from the dinner’s crowds. Keith almost called out, to prove that he wasn’t following the man, but he didn’t want anyone to now he’d spoken to Thace. It’d earn Thace scrutiny that could end badly in the Palace’s current climate.

Thace didn’t run. He came close, though. When he stopped, it was in a barely lit hall near the temple. A thought struck Keith, then, but he refused to acknowledge it. Thace wouldn’t be doing such a thing. What did he have to hide?

Out of the darkened corners, Volux appeared. Their mask was in place as they looked around. Hyladra pulled Keith back. “You’re alone?” Volux asked. Thace didn’t vocalize a response, but Volux replied. “Then let’s get this over with, before the Sorrowsingers do another check. I wish you could have come sooner.”

“Obligations are important.” A door opened. “You have the candle, then? Who did you get it from?”

“Keith’s Hani turned it in. It seems he caught some fools trying to obscure their minds and they paid him off.” The door closed behind them, cutting off the rest of the conversation. Keith gaped from where he hid in the corridor. Hyladra’s gold eyes were wide as dinner plates. She stepped forward, as though to confront them, but Keith grabbed her hand and tugged her away.

“Not here,” he whispered. “Not now.” Whatever they were hiding, Keith knew it’d be best if they didn’t interfere the obscuring. Secrets only got worse if the Sorrowsingers found them. 

Hyladra tried to pull her hand away. “They  _ used _ me!” Her voice remained low, but her tone was as sharp as a kris. “They’re hiding secrets, Keith, and that could risk both our positions.”

It was true. He steeled himself, clamping down on the panic and worry. Guilt was stuffed down the garbage chute. “I’ll talk to Zarkon,” he said as he looked her in the eyes. 

Hyladra frowned, and he felt her search the bond. There was nothing there, he knew: only a solid wall of warmth for her.  _ I’m loyal and I love you _ , he thought. He didn’t know how the words translated, but her body relaxed.  She nodded. “He’ll know best what to do.”

Rime stirred on his shoulder, breaking the moment. Hyladra clasped his hand and they hurried away from the scene. She kept giving him sidelong looks and opening her mouth, as though she wanted to ask him something, or discuss what they’d seen. Keith kept his eyes ahead. 

He was afraid that if she looked him in the eyes again, she’d see the lie he’d told.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update is the 21st!


	15. Chapter 15

What should he say? He sat in the dining hall that morning, beside Kymin and Thace. Zarkon, once again, had made no appearance, though his commands had brought Keith’s two allies to the table. Or… he assumed they were allies. 

For someone who’d been about to use the candle himself, he seemed fairly judgemental of Thace’s choice. But he and Volux had done two things that Keith found unforgivable, despite his hypocrisy. They’d stolen from and hurt Hyladra, and they’d made a point, throughout the months, of rarely telling the truth. How did Thace and Volux know each other? Why had Volux helped Thace? Why had Volux even taken an interest in Keith?

None of those questions had answers. Keith had been willing to ignore that in favour of their company, but with the Sorrowsingers about and the proof that the truth was bad enough to justify using an obscuring candle, his patience was gone. 

How did he ask, though? He knew better than to ask in public, but what setting provided him with the opportunity to press without Volux or Thace escaping or causing a scene? Bringing them to his rooms granted Keith the protection of his servants and the privacy of not having other notables watch, but there were cameras in the room. Marmora, he’d decided, had them monitored so as to hide Keith’s spying, but Keith wasn’t sure he wanted Marmora to know of his situation. Whatever secrets Thace and Volux had, Keith wanted to investigate them and think them over.

Going to Thace or Volux’s rooms promised a swift dismissal. Confronting them in quiet hallways seemed like an awful choice as well. How many secrets had Keith discovered because someone was arrogant enough to believe that no one would be in that hallway at that time of night? It’d been what started the entire mess with the Clarion and Wrin.  

Neutral ground could be found in the temple’s many rooms. But that was when the Sorrowsingers stepped in. Keith had visited the temple since he’d seen Volux and Thace’s meeting. The Sorrowsingers and temple-tenders had taken to searching the temple’s rooms every fifteen minutes. Dozens of Galra had been picked up before it’d become clear that the temple was no longer an option to obscure one’s thoughts. Even if Keith had no intention of using a candle, what would he say to a temple-tender who opened the door and saw him arguing with Volux and Thace? Nothing could explain it enough to keep it from becoming gossip. 

Which left him stuck. He went to breakfast and dinner in public. Gryva ushered him to service in between. Kymin sometimes visited, oblivious to the war happening inside Keith as he taught Keith to play a variety of Galran dice games. Those moments, when Kymin bet nuts or little trinkets and Keith bet bits of knowledge on Earth, were the most agonizing moments. Flashes of who Kymin had been appeared in his quick smile when he won, or the disgusted sniff when he lost.

Those were almost the worst hours of the day. The absolute worst were when Sorrowsinger agents appeared and took away his servants one by one. They always came back. That’s what kept Keith from losing it completely. But they came back slightly darker, dazed and worried about something they couldn’t articulate. It usually took a day until they were back to what they had been. Keith wondered, whenever a new one was taken, if that one would come back.

Either they had been good people, or Gryva’s candles had worked. Three days passed as they went through Keith’s household, and all returned. Other notables were not so lucky. One woman found half her household gone, her reputation stained for a reason she didn’t even know.

It got worse when Zarkon’s order went out. It was announced at breakfast on the third day by a burly soldier who stood in the hall dressed in a smart uniform. All notables were to return to the Palace. Any who fled would be declared outsiders.. All bans on murder, theft, and assault on the fleeing notables would be suspended pending their reconciliation with the Emperor.

Keith had forced a smile through it all, just as every other present notable. A thunderous applause of Galra banging their palms on the table ensued after the announcement. Keith joined in, vigourously nodding and talking to Kymin about how this was needed, important, a brilliant move from a brilliant man which all would surely follow.

“You looked like you’d swallowed cactus needles,” Kymin told him later that day. “I’m sure the others couldn’t tell, but I know your face.”

“Was anyone honestly excited?” Keith brooded over Rime who was, once again, molting. It purred under his claws, only occasionally sticking its tongue out to lick one of the feathers that floated through the air. Each time, he had to pull the feather free from its rough, sticky tongue. “The entire Palace has been terrified for days, and the Sorrowsingers still have two more floors to investigate  _ and  _ those who ran for it.”

Kymin reached out to touch Rime’s tendrils. It snorted and sneezed at his touch, and Kymin jerked back. He spoke like he’d never touched Rime, his eyes focused on Keith’s face. “Most of those who ran will have used candles by now. The Sorrowsingers will see little from their minds, making the process far easier than the many naked minds they’ve looked at so far.”

Keith almost asked how the candles worked. Did they allow the user to direct the investigation of their minds by summoning the good? Could the Sorrowsingers tell that something was wrong if they tried hard enough? But asking Kymin would summon that brick wall of refusal, and he’d rather have company than not.

That night, on the fourth day, when he found himself stuck wondering again what Thace and Volux had to hide, he gave up. Something was better than nothing. As they ate and the halls flooded with returned notables and their servants, Keith leaned over to Thace. “May we talk tonight?”

Thace looked at him like he was an asp. “... If you wish, Prince Caith.” It had none of the friendliness or calm geniality that Keith had come to expect. Whether it was Keith’s new position and title, Zarkon’s favour, or the secret Thace had to keep, things had changed when Keith wasn’t looking. Maybe distance had made Keith’s flaws more distinct to Thace.

It wouldn’t shock Keith. He’d discovered, personally, that when he got too close to his appearance in the metaphorical mirror, things became a little warty. Keith stared down his meal. Feeling sorry for himself accomplished nothing, yet that’s all he wanted to do. Whatever gods or powers that were he’d offended were certainly determined to take it all out on him. 

When the meal finished, everyone filed out, the casual talk and laughter all edged with nervousness. Keith trailed Thace, determined to not let the man escape. He didn’t put it past Thace to ‘get lost’ in the crowd and ‘forget’ about the meeting. Hyladra followed. She didn’t know the plan, and she blessedly hadn’t asked about it. 

Keith pulled Thace through a door near the gardens. The room was a little tea room, all delicate clay cups and puffy pillows. Only the most airheaded, gossipy, or socially powerful Galra could be found in the room during the day. It was where family fortunes were made or destroyed. Keith led Thace to a pile of pillows and sat opposite him. Hyladra waited at the door until he dismissed her with a smile he hoped looked authentic. When the door closed, they were left to an awkward and deadly silence.

“What are you planning?” Thace asked. His eyes were narrowed. 

Keith waved a hand. “I have questions. Kymin won’t answer them, and Volux has the position to hurry away.” Keith smiled.  _ You don’t _ went unsaid.

Thace’s expression turned smooth and unconcerned. “I don’t know what questions you would have of me, Prince Caith, that you could not ask the Emperor.”

Keith was going to strangle him for that comment. He didn’t have the Emperor at his beck and call. Thace knew that. Having someone who knew better playing into the salacious rumours annoyed him. “I saw you and Volux with the candle.” In the conservatory, his mind added, because it didn’t know when to be quiet.

Thace froze. It was only for a second, but it was noticeable. Keith kept a smile from his face. Thace would take offense otherwise. When Thace straightened and relaxed, his voice came out smooth as silk. “I am unsure of what you refer to.”

“Really?” Keith asked, almost amused. “Should I bring in my other witness?” Thace tensed again, and Keith went in for the kill. “You and Volux--like many in this Godforsaken palace--are hiding something. Something that both of you know about, and don’t want even the Emperor to know. I want to know what secrets you’re keeping because, if you’ll excuse the language, every fucking thing that’s been secret among you Galra has come back to  _ bite me in the ass _ .”

Thace blinked, his ears downcast and panic in his expression. “Forgive me, but I don’t think that idiom translates well--”

“I don’t care.” Keith leaned forward. “Is there any risk that this secret poses a threat to me? Will I end up with a knife in my back if it gets out?”

“Of course not,” Thace said, but Thace lied and he lied well. Keith would never know for certain until he knew the secret. And how would he know the secret? Thace could feed him lie after lie, until Keith no longer knew how to pick out the truth. 

The only people who could see the truth, he thought, were the Sorrowsingers. And they were thwarted with the power of the candles. An idea struck him then, horrible and twisted. He didn’t acknowledge it, as though that’d send it scurrying away to the recesses of his mind. 

Keith eyed Thace. “And you’re being honest. Completely honest. This has nothing to do with me whatsoever. Does it have something to do with why you and Volux seem to know each other so well?”

“... Yes.” Keith blinked at the sudden honesty. If it was honesty. “The way we met was humiliating for me and detrimental to Volux’s position. While it would end with neither of us exiled, it would harm both of us to have it placed before other Druids’ views. Worse, if the gossip got out, it would compound my problems in maintaining my position in the military. It was bad enough that I helped Wrin, but for my superiors to know that I had such a failing as I did--” He shuddered. “Think of it, Keith, as your weakest moment combined with the most embarrassing event in your life, and then layer scandal atop it. It has nothing to do with you, nor will it end in harm coming to you.”

Keith stared. “So I should think of it as… what? You broke something valuable in the temple and tried to cover it up, but Volux discovered your mishap?”

“Something like that,” Thace said and grimaced. “Damaging to myself and Volux if revealed, but it will not reflect on you at all.”

It was a simple explanation. Innocent for matters of deceit. Keith smiled and accepted it and as he left the room, he knew he didn’t believe a word. It was  _ too _ neat. It wrapped up Thace and Volux’s interactions in a pretty bow around a box of embarrassment. It didn’t explain why Volux had become interested in Keith. It didn’t explain why Volux had felt obligated to help Thace with Wrin, despite Volux despising Wrin, and it didn’t explain why Thace had, again and again, been kind to Keith. The entire scenario reeked of sewage and slime, and Thace’s coat of paint washed away under the torrent of filth. 

The idea he’d discarded sidled up. He swatted it away so he could smile brightly at Hyladra. She looked relieved to be free from duty. They walked, laughing and talking, back to Keith’s apartments. Rime snoozed in her arms, the dendin having been gifted to her when he entered the tea room. “It just settled right down,” she gushed. Her fingers kept tracing the feather patterns on the cloudy body. “As though I was just as good as you!”

“Aren’t you?” Keith said. She laughed and swatted him, rousing Rime for its doze. It chittered in outrage, but two hands petting it unsettled the creature down. When they reached the apartments, it was in companionable silence. Keith felt, though the bond, Hyladra’s contentment. She thought everything was over. The Sorrowsingers’ attentions were elsewhere, Keith was safe, and Keith seemed to have decided to engage in no more foolishness, even if he’d spoke to Thace.

She didn’t realize the idea that haunted him. He didn’t even want to acknowledge it, if he was honest. It was a bad idea, a cruel idea, an idea that would hurt and backfire and twist from a coil of rope to a better place to a hissing cobra. They sat beside each other in the main room, surrounded by cheerful Galra, and chatted about dendin, upcoming festivals, and what things were scheduled for tomorrow.

He went to bed tired yet knowing he wouldn’t sleep. The idea insisted on making its presence known. Was it even possible, though? What risks did he take on if he proceeded with it? How would the Voice react? It seemed so neatly simple. Nothing really was, though. Everything was tangled: it was just a matter of how far down the rope it was. 

Hyladra dozed against his mind. It let him think without guards up. The idea was that Keith could speak to the Voice, enter the Chorus, and find Thace’s voice. Volux he wouldn’t be able to approach--he didn’t know the extent of a Druid’s powers in the Chorus--but Thace was unguarded except for the candle. Keith would know about the candle’s presence, though, and that would hopefully subvert its power. In the Chorus, Keith could sample Thace’s mind, and see what was inside.

It was another betrayal, far graver than anything else. He’d invade Thace’s mind with the power of his own god. If Thace ever found out, Keith would be abandoned by Volux  _ and _ Thace, if not Hyladra as well. Zarkon would be furious if Thace was innocent. He’d be grateful if Thace was guilty of some hidden crime or another. Both were bad options.

He wasn’t even sure  _ what _ Thace was lying about. If Thace told the truth and it was simply some unnamed incident that was a bit embarrassing, Keith would look paranoid and vicious. Even if Keith found something of interest, explaining to people why he’d taken such a risk on a simple hunch would be difficult. 

How much did he distrust Thace? The question missed the problem. It had less to do with a specific distrust than a general distrust. He hated secrets. He felt threatened by them. While before, he’d been able to… not so much tolerate being in the dark, but understand that people needed distance, that they didn’t need to tell him everything to be worth trusting. Now, though… Now, every thing he didn’t know was a looming shadow. Who knew what the secret would mean in a week? It could be another knife in the back.

Once again, he hated the person he’d become. This was less of a twisted reflection in a mirror, and more like he’d been replaced with something else. Some sort of slithering, cowardly, and suspicious snake who went from party to party, delving for secrets and salacious whispers. This wasn’t the man who’d piloted like he was born to it, or fought like a soldier. He wasn’t a Paladin anymore, yet he didn’t feel like he had enough power to be a politician either.

When he lay on his bed, Rime on his belly, he stared at the clearing ceiling and the stars high above. This was his life now, he told himself as he had so many times before. He could either make do or be devoured by the position. If his instincts said that Thace and Volux hid something, they were. He had nothing else to go on, after all, other than Thace’s flimsy, too-smooth words. And these were his enemies anyway, another voice in him pointed out.

That stung to think. He’d spent so long around the Galra, dining and chatting and laughing. The thought that they didn’t owe him anything and he didn’t owe them anything in return hurt. What had the past months been for, then? The stupidity of the thought almost overwhelmed him. He hadn’t come as a diplomat. He was a  _ prisoner _ . The entire time among the Galra had been for survival.

Finding out what Thace hid was about survival. It was about knowing what was coming, if anything. If that involved hurting people he’d formed a warped attachment to, all the better. Maybe it’d pull him out of the pathetic heap he’d become, where he thought Galra were his friends.  _ Voltron is waiting for me _ , he thought. Voltron was what mattered. Hurting Thace through underhanded means for his own safety was justified. It wasn’t any different, materially, than if he returned to Voltron and killed Thace on the battlefield. 

Most of him didn’t buy it. But the electric feeling of panic and paranoia had taken root in the base of his neck. Maybe this was his only way to feel like he was in control of the situation. Maybe it was a wise choice that would get him answers about two of the most questionable members of his social circle after they’d ignored and lied to him. He closed his eyes and began to search for the Voice.

She waited for him. Her power permeated the Palace like a foul air. It wrapped around him like bandages, covering his blemishes as a mortal and digging deep into his skin to drink from his golden blood. She was, he thought, a parasite. Even when the Galra were away from the temple, she sipped at their quintessence. What did it look like when she feasted during service? For a moment, he was glad he’d never reached out to her as a temple-tender. The things he would have seen would have burrowed into his soul like carrion worms.

The Voice’s song was distant and slow, like she’d decided to sleep with one half of Gal. Did that mean she was on the same part of Gal as he was, or was it her own circadian rhythm? Who knew. He didn’t think anyone really did. The Voice was an amalgamation of every Galra who still acknowledged her. Not all the clocks throughout the universe ran on the same time. She was, likely, always awake, yet always asleep.

He slipped from wakefulness to a doze. The Chorus grew in size, its roar like the buffeting wings of a condor. He crawled through a world of solid gold. The Voice stirred; a fragment of her mind fell in beside him, brushing over his clothes and hands like how Keith pet Rime.  _ Mine _ , it murmured. It had none of the urgency it once had. Instead, it wrapped him like a blanket. Faint curiosity sunk into his skin.  _ What are you doing? Where are you going? Can I come too? _

Those were sapient thoughts, though. Keith projected his own ways of thinking onto an entity nothing like him. But the translation didn’t bother the Voice. She slept, and the piece of her nudged him, as though urging him on. 

He didn’t know how to enter the Chorus of his own will. The Voice had always dragged him in. He whispered to the quintessence around him, begging it to let him in.  _ I just need to find something. Something small, something you won’t care about. I promise not to hurt anything. _

The Voice’s shard hummed against his skin. It seemed to doze; it breathed with him, only sparking when it lifted too far from his skin. Forward, forward, forward, he thought. Eventually he’d leave his dream and join the Voice proper. Exhaustion pulled at his mind, trying to sink him deep into the realm of sleep, while his body began to ache. How much time had passed in limbo between himself and the Chorus? The Chorus’ sounds were no louder. They were still roaring buzz, like a far off swarm of mosquitoes.

When the sleep became too much, he almost gave in. He slumped against the floor that wasn’t a floor and rested his head against the ground that wasn’t ground, and tried to keep his eyes open for just a moment longer. When they flagged, he breathed out one last time. He expected to wake in bed hours later, surrounded by his household. His eyelids fell.

He woke to a thunderous blare of a horn. Its unending note echoed, though he didn’t know where there were walls. Gold, red, purple, and orange lashed like rope together. Their strength hoisted Keith from the ground. The tornado whipped around and around. Without a bottom, he lost track of where he was, or what he was close to. The Chorus surrounded him, deafened him, and he didn’t know if it was a dream or real. How had he got here? He searched for the shard, but it was gone. His skin tingled. 

He didn’t land. The winds stopped, releasing him before they barrelled away. He floated, lighter than a feather; all around him, as far as the eye could see, was colour. Despite the swirling physical waves of colours masquerading as flames, his vision remained remarkably clear. 

The Voice greeted him with a sudden warmth that vanished as quickly as it came. Where she went afterward, he didn’t know. Could she even tell he was conscious in the Chorus? Why would he be anything else, though--

And that’s when he saw them. Little bubbles of shimmery pink, like thin clouds over a setting sun. Inside, pastel figures moved. His eyes focused on a little bubble the size of his palm. Miniature figures danced and laughed as they hurried about over fields of reddened wheat. A Galra woman nuzzled a shorter man and whispered things into his ear that delighted him. It was her show, Keith thought: the bubble’s surface always featured her face front and centre. 

Was it a memory or a dream? The answer came when the wheat turned a striking purple and the pair of Galra began to float. Water poured in around them, creating a warm, sunny beach. Keith tried to walk away from the picture. There was nothing to push off of, though, and he had to resort to a strange paddling. His hands scooped up light and pushed it behind him. It gave him a slow, steady force as he wandered unmarked and unwalled halls of the Chorus’... what? Heart? Mind? He thought heart. From the bubbles flowed quintessence, which poured down, down, down, until he could no longer see where it went. The Voice’s heart took the Galras’ quintessence and fed it into the rest of the body.

He was watching the slow deaths of thousands. His skin crawled. All he heard was the deafening din of the dreamspace. This was what he’d wanted, though, in a way. He didn’t know what touching the bubbles would do, or how he could get what he wanted from them, but he could figure that out later. 

There was no order to how the bubbles appeared. There was no limit either. Thousands of bubbles floated from the endless bottom of the Chorus. Two options presented themselves: he could turn to the Voice and convince a shard to guide him, or he could try to see what he could manipulate on his own. He didn’t know how the Voice would react to him picking at the bubbles, so he chose the option least likely to end in pain: he’d find it on his own. For all he knew, an hour in the Chorus was a minute in the waking world. He’d probably realize morning was coming from the bubbles vanishing. If they did that, and weren’t replaced by more dreamers.

He should have done research before he came. What research, from what books, and how he’d get access, he didn’t know. But he should have come more prepared. 

He floated past bubbles, hoping for a glimpse of Thace or Volux’s face. A worry that they weren’t asleep yet plagued him, but he didn’t have a choice but to search. When luck failed him--he’d passed a few hundred bubbles without anyone noticing he knew--he stopped and breathed deep. Marmora had said that all Galra had the ability to use quintessence. Now was a good time to figure out if he had any abilities.

Deep breaths were used to centre himself. His eyes drifted closed. HIs body turned limp, though the lack of gravity in the Chorus left him to bob under the motions of his relaxation. Druids were meant to communicate with the Voice, despite their innate powers. Did she guide them through the process, or were they taught spells?

_ I’m here _ , he thought, hoping she’d hear. The Voice didn’t stir.  _ I’m one of yours _ .  _ I need your help _ . No guidance appeared. How could he catch her attention without angering her? He didn’t know what she’d do if he punched one of the bubbles or started yelling. She seemed content to float around, dozing.  _ Wake up! _

The Chorus didn’t dim or stutter. The Voice dreamed on, leaving Keith to grit his teeth. “Wake up!” he tried to say aloud. He didn’t even know if the words came out of his mouth. The Chorus swept away sound and expelled air. It was like he’d never said a word, or even breathed.

A sick idea occurred to him then. It crept close and whispered, as they tended to. The only thing that’d ever guaranteed the Voice’s attention was a threat to her control. She didn’t care if her hosts died. She didn’t pay mind to their suffering or joys. What she cared about was possessing each Galra who’d ever touched her. 

Which left him with the Red Lion who’d turned ever so quiet since his meeting with Shiro in a dream. The delusions had faded, and the world had righted itself under the guidance of the Voice. Now, he was going to tear that open.

If it didn’t work, he was going to be mad. Mostly at himself.

He called out to Red by scratching at the burnt earth where their bond had once blossomed. The Voice had scorched and salted as she could, but the Red Lion’s roots went deep. They just needed to be dug up and coaxed to the light.  _ I’m here _ , he whispered to the Lion.  _ I need your help. _

For a moment, nothing stirred. Then he felt the ashes of his mind shift, as though something far below shook itself from slumber. Red didn’t roar or purr. The scene he imagined vanished, leaving only Red’s eyes meeting his.  _ You’re back _ , she seemed to say. She pressed against him, warm as banked embers.  _ I missed you _ .

Keith’s eyes burned. The words that went through his head stung.  _ It’s good to be back _ . He didn’t mean to say it, but Red heard. And she knew what it meant. Her body rumbled was she purred.

It cut off in a wailing screech from all around him. The Voice knew. Worse, it wasn’t a shard that’d stirred: the Voice herself turned from the cozy warmth of sleep to the vicious winds of winter. She descended on the Lion with the fury of a valkyrie. Red snarled, as though about to stand her ground. Keith pushed at her, whispering promises that he’d come back for her, that he needed the Voice for something, and Red’s fury and pleasure died. The bond retreated into the scorched soil to wait.

The Voice’s rage didn’t end, though. It lashed at the earth, talons raking over it, digging and searching for Red. The Lion retreated deeper and deeper, toward the core of heat far below the surface. 

Keith came beside the Voice. He said nothing; he merely waited. When the Voice’s frantic search ended, she quivered in anger beside him. He could almost hear her panting breaths.  _ I’m here _ , he told the Voice. The interruption was greeted by a pause--then she folded around him, a stifling blanket that suffocated.  _ Mine, mine, mine _ , she chanted, mindless as a jellyfish but so painfully, mortally aware of thieves.

_ Show me magic _ , he told her. Images of quintessence-lightning and healing paraded through his mind.  _ Show me how to do this. Only you can teach me. _

The Voice turned to him. Keith tried not to shrink back. The world went silent. He realized, then, that it wasn’t because the sound had stopped. It was because the Chorus had become so loud he could no longer hear. Only her thoughts travelled to him, heavy as stone but soft as a feather. 

_ Listen. Watch. _

The world didn’t vanish. His vision turned black, like a theatre screen. The images he saw were disjointed, as though cobbled together from the reel of a dozen movies. Druids sang together and the fire they stood around grew high above their heads. One waved a hand at a charging enemy and quintessence lashed out like a whip, sending them flying. A woman bled out from a chunk of her skull missing. Gloves hands were pressed along her body. The bone and flesh began to knit together.

_ This is the power I gave _ , the Voice said, though not in words.  _ All of this is mine, and it can be yours too. _

Did she believe the lie the Druids propagated? Was she trying to manipulate him? Now wasn’t the time to wonder.  _ Share it. _

Yet the Voice pulled away. Had she heard his thoughts? If she had, he suspected she’d have killed him. The Chorus became audible again, and he felt the Voice slip back into slumber, as though her job was done. He shouted for her to come back, but she didn’t even glance at him. He blinked and the theatre was gone. It left him among the bubbles. Either the Voice had helped him in a way he didn’t understand, or she’d played the biggest political cockblock he’d faced.  _ Yes _ , she seemed to say,  _ there’s power for you. _

_ When, then? _ he wanted to demand. Panic and anger roiled throughout his body. He forced himself to breathe. The only rush was the creeping sense of danger that dogged his shadow. There were no knives at his throat or reason to believe anyone wanted him dead yet. The Clarion didn’t know his current form and title. To them, he was one enemy among many. There was time. 

There was time, yet the anger in him burned to an inferno. After all this time, after so many mind games and manipulations, he was stopped by a barely conscious parasite. The impulse to hold in the anger only made it worse. He couldn’t even be honest about what he was feeling in his  _ dreams _ . His breath hitched. His eyes didn’t burn, but he wished they did. He would have been happier for it.

“Please,” he said. He tried to grab the Voice, but she was air in his hands; he gave up as his grasp on the strands of quintessence turned to sand between his fingers. The bubbles around him floated and bobbed. He slumped in the air and waited for himself to wake.

Something warm tugged at his pant leg. He twisted around, ready to strike, but all he saw was more gold. It wasn’t the Voice, he thought; she hadn’t brought sound, and he didn’t feel her. This was something else--something just as warm, but far more playful. Puppyish, it swirled around him like a twister, tugging and prodding and almost, if he listened right, laughing.  _ I’m here! _ It seemed to say.  _ I’m here, and you should come with me! _

More projection, but Keith didn’t know how else to put the waves of joy and contentment the force had. “Who are you?” he asked. A spark hit his chest as the force wrapped around him like a happy cat. He knew, then, what it was. It wasn’t the Voice, or a Druid, or even some unknown trickster. It was quintessence itself, unfiltered through the Druids or the Voice’s taint. It breathed against him, as living as Keith or Rime, and the joy that built in his chest almost hurt. It was only slightly his.

“Where did you come from?” Keith touched where he thought the mass of energy to be. It crackled under his touch, though it didn’t move or squirm away. How hadn’t he met the quintessence befor?

The answer came instantly. Because the Voice hadn’t let it. The Voice blocked quintessence’s natural almost-personality. Did she see it as competition? Did she see it as simply food to be corralled? The quintessence that huddled against him didn’t have the intelligence of a person, but simply the emotions of one. It quivered when he pet it, like a young animal trying to get used to sensations.

“Can you help me?” he asked it.

The quintessence buzzed over his skin, as though thinking. It didn’t answer, and Keith wondered if that was even possible. Quintessence was life energy, after all, and it wouldn’t be surprising if it didn’t come with higher thought processes. It might not even understand mortal communications: people thought in words--

Sometimes. They sometimes thought in words. People also used images and sound, and the former was the most important. He breathed deep and conjured a mental image of Thace. Like throwing a dog a ball, he tried to project it outward, showing it the target.  _ Go get it _ , he thought.

The quintessence peered at the image, contemplating it, before it enveloped him. Keith almost cried out and struggled, but he could still breathe. He sucked in a deep breath and tried to trust in the force. The world blurred, though he felt no motion. The Chorus’ sound didn’t quiet. Keith blinked and the quintessence pulled away. It didn’t leave: it simply floated around him, watching what he did.

The bubbles around Keith were different. He recognized some of the Galra now, and some of the bubbles were strangely shadowed, likely the work of a candle. There was the herald who called out every arriving notable at parties. Beside that bubble, a porter huddled on a ship, terrified, as a storm raged. Across, a Galra snoozed in the sun beside a loved one, the vision greyed by a cloudy smoke.

Keith turned around and Thace’s eyes met his. His heart skipped a beat before it sunk in that the bubble had merely focused on Thace’s face. The man wasn’t there to string him up for what Keith had done. Keith almost went ragged in relief. He looked at the surrounding bubbles--most were of fellow officers, or Galra who might have been related to Thace, and several were clouded. When he looked at the bubble below Thace’s, he saw Volux.

While Thace dreamed of boring meetings, Volux’s dreams were ugly, dark affairs. Things crept and crawled in the blackness, while Volux huddled against the wall, their face twisted in agony.  Char marks covered the floor around them. Keith leaned in. Volux’s robes were burnt, and Keith swore he smelled burnt flesh. 

Uneasy, he pulled away. As much as he wanted to interrupt the nightmare, Volux was the most likely to sense and realize his intrusion. Thace was the target.

Thace’s bubble looked almost like every other bubble: sunset-coloured, round, and with a glassy surface that displayed his dreams and mind. The smoke around it reeked of burning fat. Keith leaned forward and almost choked on the stench. He waved at the cloud, but it never completely went away. It didn’t stop him, though, and Keith wondered how the Sorrowsingers did their interrogations. If it was like this, there was no reason the candles would stop them.

Other questions rose. What would the bubble show if Keith came in the day? The question intrigued Keith, but not enough to try it. He knew, somehow, that it would be far worse: louder, more chaotic, less welcoming to his presence. He might not be able to dive into Thace’s mind.

Here, at night, he could lean in, squinting at the images of papers, commanders, and steely chairs and tables. Around the bubble’s edge, fiery little designs of gold were etched. Did it say something about the dreamer’s personality? Maybe it showed their mental state. If so, Keith struggled to translate the gold filigree as ‘guilty’. He sighed and looked down at the endless bottom he floated above. But his eye caught something, and he frowned.

Between Thace and Volux’s bubbles, a strand hung. Black as coal and thin as a spider’s webbing, it was difficult to ignore. He crouched down to look closer. The strand started from the very bottom of Thace’s rounded bubble; its end, while loose, had wrapped its way inside Volux’s bubble. Keith thought it almost looked like oil had spilled from Thace’s portrait to Volux’s.

No other bubble had had that, even those with the candle’s smoke-- at least of those he’d seen. Was this what he searched for? It didn’t confirm anything, but it hinted at some sort of aberration. The kind that people wouldn’t want others to know.

Trepidation paralyzed him. This wasn’t a little bit of treason with the Clarion, or some sort of unnamed embarrassment. The oil dripping spoke of dark secrets, the sort that took place behind closed doors and never saw light. Thace and Volux had done  _ something _ together--or possibly to each other. Hideous news headlines ran through his head, all of them ugly as death. He didn’t want to think either of them capable of something truly horrible, but they were Galra, loyal Empire Galra, and he knew their hands were bloody.

He reached out and touched the strand. Like a cello’s strings, it thrummed when plucked. The sound didn’t echo--there were no walls for that--but it seemed to travel the Chorus’ ways to join the heart of the roar. Keith jerked back as the black strand’s grew wet, and oil oozed into the bubbles. The light colours of the bubbles behind the smoke turned a watery, inky grey. Keith cringed as the ink rolled down from the top of Volux’s bubble like a warped waterfall. He held his breath as he watched Volux’s nightmare.

The ink dripped over Volux’s face. When the vision cleared, Volux looked right at him. “Who’s there?” they demanded. The shadows and monsters receded. They shook their head like waking from the dream. Their hands rubbed at their eyes before they returned to searching. Quintessence bubbled from the dream’s ground. Volux grabbed it like a lifeline. 

Keith didn’t wait to see what Volux did. He took a deep breath, prayed, raised a fist, and slammed it into his face. His eyes snapped open and he lunged from bed, gasping. Imprints of the Chorus shaded his eyes. The candles’ smoke lingered in his nose and on his tongue.

He looked out at the dark room, trying to catch his breath. The moons’ light lit the room in brilliant scarlets. It didn’t help the headache building behind his eyes. He pressed his palms against them. Sparks in the darkness filled his vision. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter. When finally, the pain went away and he looked up, he froze. Surrounded by the inky greyness of the Chorus’ taint was a young Galran woman. She wore tattered robes and her hair had been tied high on her head by a flowered twig. What transfixed him, though, was something different. 

She looked just like him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update is October 1st! Got some coursework I need to catch up on. :3a I hope you all enjoyed the chapter! <3


	16. What They Should Have Known: An Interlude

It came in waves. 

Dark and oily, it rippled out from the void and reached with crooked tendrils to brush against the golden shining barrier. The light crackled. The darkness burned. Again and again, the tendrils dragged themselves up and down the barrier, the mind behind the tendrils unaware of pain, unaware of panic, unaware of anything but a creeping, intent hunger. Beneath the oily smoking surface, a light as brilliant as the barrier gleamed. When the dark burned away, it revealed the bones of light; the golden barrier shuddered and screamed, like ripping metal.

The barrier’s hue grew and grew, more blinding than the sun. Its fire devoured the darkness for as far as any mortal eye could see. When the firestorm ended, the oily darkness was gone, though the barrier’s power had dimmed. The power it so needed would come--but it would come slower and lesser, weak and mild, not the fire the barrier wrapped itself in. If it’d had a mind, it might have worried. 

It might have worried that, somewhere in the void, something just as dark, just as oily, just as  _ hungry _ , stirred.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little interlude since schoolwork has kicked me in the teeth! The next update should be on the 9th. <3
> 
> ETA: Date pushed back to the 13th! Sickness and schoolwork have kicked me in the teeth. I'm sorry about this!


	17. Chapter 17

Nothing was real, and nothing was true. The woman stared at him, her fur dark as his and her jawline just as sharp. He blinked. She didn’t disappear. He waited for her to reach out, to scream, to sing or laugh or do  _ anything _ but stand there like a ghostly statue. Keith’s nails dug into his palms.  _ Who are you? _ he almost asked.

The woman said nothing. She didn’t even twitch. Her eyes, unmoving yet still a brilliant gold as though she lived, watched him, empty as a tree hollow. He prayed for her to leave, but her form had smeared over his vision like a film of oil. 

The woman stepped forward, her chest fluttering as she tried to breathe. She was dying, he thought, drained of life, almost deflated; her bare foot touched the rug around his bed, and he swore she slipped. Her body hunched as her arms crossed over her stomach. No blood spilled from a wound, nor did it look swollen with disease. She fell to her knees, her mouth opening in an unheard cry of agony. Her eyes looked out, the gold in them fading to old yellow parchment, and they begged for him to help, for  _ someone  _ to help.

_ Reach out _ , he thought. That’s all he needed to do. A simple touch, and maybe he could reach through the gauzy white veil that draped over her, through the slimy oil, and help her. He opened his mouth to speak, to ask who she was, but all that came out was a choked, husky moan. His eyes fluttered open.

The ceiling was black. People walked around the apartments outside his door. It was almost time to be woken and play the game, once again, that he was Prince Caith. No one greeted him. The Voice hadn’t chased him. Volux’s anger, if it ever sparked, had not come yet. The woman was gone--just like the veil and oil.

Someone knocked on the door. Rime woke with a jolt. It bumped against his shoulder, nipped at his skin, and then scuttled down the bed, onto the floor. “Come in,” Keith called out. His rough voice hurt his throat. When had he last drank water? He cursed to himself as he sat up and straightened his hair. His clawed fingers caught a tangle or two that he ripped out. Gryva wouldn’t approve. She hated that he didn’t take care of his hair and fur like a true notable. 

_ I’m not one _ , he thought. He was just a prisoner in whose dreams nestled terrible things. Who was the woman? Who could he even ask that of? 

Why had she looked like him?

That followed him as he went through the motions. Cleaning, dressing, eating, and waiting--so much waiting--was accompanied by his mind, frozen and dulled by exhaustion, rushing through excuses of why that woman looked like him, and why she’d been in the Chorus. Maybe she was Thace’s sister, and Volux had reincarnated her as Keith. That made no sense, though. Keith didn’t know how old Volux was, but Volux looked close to Keith’s age. Thace’s hypothetical sister would have needed to be reincarnated when Keith was born.

Unless Galran… spiritual physiology worked differently. Maybe her lingering Chorus spirit had been implanted in Keith. Then, when he transformed, he’d become her. But why, then, had he looked like the woman all his life? His Galran form wasn’t much different than his human form beyond the racial adaptations.

The one constant thought, the vile little suspicious that perched on his shoulder, poking and prodding, went ignored. It wasn’t possible. He wasn’t a Galra. If he was, how had he been a human all his life--from birth? How had he made it to Earth? No, he was a human orphan whose mother had left him with a family she’d likely known growing up, and things had taken their course from there. Any strange little hints of…  _ problems _ that the orphanage workers had hinted at were coincidences. At worst, he’d been a product of abuse and incest, causing deformities that’d been corrected on the government’s dime. Maybe he’d had growths. Maybe he’d had a fucking third head.

He wasn’t a Galra. Caith was a con scheme. His life as a pampered prince meant nothing. In a month, something new would happen and he’d be forced to abandon the charade. ‘Forced’ if it meant retreating to the deserts under Zarkon’s thumb. ‘Freed’ if he managed to escape.

Gryva kept looking at him. Whether it was because his expression was particularly dour or something new had gone wrong, Keith didn’t dare ask. He stared out the window and tried to squash the panic growing in his chest. It wasn’t helped when Hyladra entered the rooms, a frown visible and her brow furrowed.

She sat beside him, prim and proper, and everyone made sure to look away when she leaned in to whisper to him. “The Sorrowsingers are upset.”

His stomach twisted. “Do you know why?” He already suspected.

Hyladra shook her head. “They won’t say in public, and the other Druids aren’t interested in sharing. I would like to advise you, Prince Caith, that it might be wise to avoid the public for today. If the Sorrowsingers have found evidence of deep betrayal, it would be best to not put you in harm’s way if things become unpleasant.”

They’d felt him in the Chorus. That was one of the options, but was it the most likely? He didn’t know. It depended on how their other investigations were going, of which he knew nothing. He cursed himself for diving into the Chorus. All he’d achieved were more questions and risk.

“Understandable,” he said. Somehow the word had become his filler, the stopgap he turned to when he didn’t want to say yes or no and prolong what was, at its core, the inevitable. It was  _ understandable _ that people would want him to stay in his room and slowly inch toward insanity. It was  _ understandable _ that Keith wouldn’t argue with it. Whatever balls he’d had when he was first captured had been lopped off and throw in the incinerator. He was a parody of what he’d been. In public, he paraded like a pampered poodle; in private, he played the stupid frivolous friend or spitfire that so charmed Zarkon.

He wasn’t any of those things. He was Keith Kogane, Red Paladin. He wasn’t a temple-tender. He wasn’t a prince. And he wasn’t a fucking  _ Galra _ .

Hyladra placed a hand on his shoulder as concern spread across her face. “Are you well?”

“I’m fine,” he said. He didn’t clasp his hand against hers or smile. The strength wasn’t in him. He wanted to ask for mindless TV, but nobody had ever talked about shows to him. Did the Galra watch television or movies? Or were they considered low-brow and beneath a prince? He might be able to play it off as a foreign prince’s curiosity, but it’d still cause scandalized looks among his staff and he couldn’t think of anything he wanted  _ less _ at the moment than Galran-brand drama.

Hyladra didn’t push in words. Her side of the bond nudged him, as though checking for bruises and cuts. He tried to shrug back. He wasn’t sure it made it through the bond, so he did it in the physical world too. Hyladra managed a smile. It didn’t look all that convincing. What mattered, though, was that he was left to the couch to rot.

Somewhere in the Palace, Volux and Thace could be meeting to talk about the strange dream they’d had the night before. Maybe the woman hadn’t just infected Keith, but them as well. Images of her falling to her knees, mouth agape in a scream, sent shivers through his body. Ice water had filled his veins in the night. His idiocy might have tipped his hand. Worse, it might have left traces for the Druids to find. Was it possible to leave spiritual fingerprints? What if the Voice told them he’d visited? He’d assumed he could go in without notice while knowing little about how Druids worked. It was assumption atop assumption, and now the flimsy tower leaned and swayed, ready to fall. His eyes kept drifting to the door, as though expecting to see a fuming Volux or a mass of Sorrowsingers.

When noon came, he was ushered to his room to nap. His staff would do the same. It was high storm season, he was told, but the storm had happened for the month, and nothing would break the coming heat. They left him with a bucket of ice in front of a fan, a diaphanous sheet that let the cool air touch his body, and a pitcher of chilled wine. He had to fend off Rime from the ice bucket. It desperately wanted to crawl into it and sleep, but he didn’t know how a dendin’s body would react to such a temperature.

“Just sleep with me,” he told it as it wriggled in his hands. He sighed and picked up three ice cubes; Rime almost struggled free from his grasp, but a swift presentation of the ice cubes consoled it. Its long, darting tongue lapped at the ice cubes. Its purr grew louder when he placed the ice cubes on a corner of the bed and placed Rime beside them. The sound followed him to sleep. 

They woke him when the sun was long past its peak. Gryva looked grim. They tended to his hair and clothes in silence. When Gryva spoke, the words were quiet with fright. “The Sorrowsingers wish to speak to you.”

Hyladra was in the room. He felt her fear like it was his own. It tasted of copper and ice. Keith refused to look at her face. It’d only make his own fear worse. “How long have they been waiting?”

Gryva adjusted his belt. “We woke you as soon as they came. They gave no information on what they wish to talk about.” She eyed him. “Though I suspect, from your face, you already know what’s raised their alarm.”

Keith shrugged. Gryva didn’t press, though Hyladra’s presence leaned against the bond.  _ Tell me _ , she demanded.  _ What did you do? What were you  _ **_thinking_ ** _? _

The awkward answer was that he hadn’t been thinking. He’d been going on instinct and hope. Rime chirped and buzzed in distress as its melted ice cubes were mopped up and the bucket taken from the room. He shushed and hummed to the creature. It distracted him from the dread that’d taken up residence in his stomach. Heavy as iron and dense as lead, it made him want to scream until the mass came up.

The Sorrowsingers came when the last servant had filed out. Hyladra tried to stay, but the deadened eyes of the entering Sorrowsingers forced her into retreat. She didn’t look at Keith as she walked from the room. Even the bond went quiet.

There were four Sorrowsingers and a set of five servants with them. Their numbers told Keith they either knew who he was, or knew he’d found influence over quintessence. They were ready for a fight. They didn’t know they wouldn’t get one.

“Prince Caith,” one of the Sorrowsingers said. Their voice sounded like the grinding of stone, or the creak of old oaks. Their mask’s eyes were trained on Keith. “You know why we are here.”

Keith met the mask’s eyes. Looking away admitted weakness. “I do.” Denying the truth would only bait the Sorrowsingers to violence and self-righteousness. They couldn’t truly hurt him. Zarkon would have issued protection on Keith. He’d also not trespassed against the Voice by entering the Chorus. She’d welcomed him, after all. But there were two other risks:

One, he knew that Volux and Thace held a secret so dark that they were willing to risk their lives and stations to hide it. And two, Keith knew details about Marmora and the work he’d done for them. Neither of those things could be revealed to the Sorrowsingers. He couldn’t control their reactions, not like he at least  _ thought _ he could with Zarkon or Hyladra. 

“Why?” the Sorrowsinger asked.

“She called to me.” Keith frowned down at the rumbling dendin at his side. Rime looked at him with those sour green eyes. Was it worry in them, or simply the usual daze Rime lived in? He’d lost the ability to tell. “So I walked the path she invited me to. I--I was probably clumsy, wasn’t I? So you and the other Druids felt me bumbling around.” He forced a laugh. It sounded frantic to his ears, and he hated that. “But all I did was poke at a few things and walk around. I didn’t know--I didn’t know it’d be this bad. I just thought it might be something people think is weird but not,” and he waved his hands around at the general area, at the Palace, at Gal, “a scandal. Or something that’d make you concerned.”

“Walking the Chorus is something done only by Druids.” The Sorrowsinger’s body didn’t even move to breathe. It was eerie--like a living statue. “To join to the Voice in such a way without being cleansed of your past ties is to pull in the dirt and grime of this world to the purity of the Chorus.”

There was nothing pure about the Chorus. It was a peepshow of dreams and minds. The filth and horrors people faced filled its wall-less halls. It wasn’t like he could tell them that, though. “I’m sorry,” he said instead. “If I’d realized the gravity of what I was about to do, I never would have entered the Chorus. I felt the Voice inviting me, and I followed.” He hoped the Voice didn’t rat him out. Could she even tell the Sorrowsingers he’d been in the Chorus long before she spoke to him? What he’d seen from her said ‘no’.

“This cannot go unpunished,” said one of the other Sorrowsingers. “It was a mistake to do, but the Chorus will need to be cleansed. And we do not know how the Mother Voice has reacted.”

Was she refusing to talk to them, then? Maybe she didn’t see it as a problem, and didn’t understand why the Sorrowsingers cared. Keith wasn’t some stranger to her. She’d always been eager to pull him close. Even his current state was the result of her influence. 

Though now, he didn’t need to wonder at why she’d changed him. The woman he’d seen in the Chorus had something to do with it. Maybe there were finite beats and rhythms in the Chorus and quintessence, and his own followed the woman’s. Who Volux and Thace happened to know but was long gone. He could be the woman’s human doppelganger. Maybe she was related to Volux or Thace, and that’s why both had become involved in his life.

There were infinite reasons for her to be present. Just like there were infinite reasons for Keith to look like her. Even on Earth, there were pairs of strangers who looked eerily alike and lived continents away from each other.

He tried not to startle when the first Sorrowsinger spoke. “Put your hand out.”

Keith stiffened. “What are you going to do?”

“That is not your place to ask,” the Sorrowsinger said. They reached out to grab Keith’s hands. Keith jerked back, startling Rime at his side. Rime chattered angrily at him, which cut off to a squawk when he snatched the creature up and took several steps away from the bed.

If they were going to read his mind or mentally torture him, he couldn’t let them do it. What if they saw Marmora? What if they found the memory of Thace and Volux using the candle? But most importantly, what would they do if they saw him poisoning Prorok?

“Tell me what you want to do.” He almost didn’t recognize his voice. It was winter-cold and blistering. “I’m not some low-ranked servant you can do what you want to. I’m a  _ Prince _ .” But more importantly, he was a Paladin of Voltron.

The Sorrowsingers stood in unison. Their robes flowed like water around them, the hem’s edges whispering like a breeze through sunflowers. “Rank and title means nothing in the eyes of the Voice.” They stepped forward as one, their long strides devouring the distance between them and Keith.

Rime squirmed, but he clutched the creature to his chest. He wished he had his armour or bayard. “But it means something to you.” The head Sorrowsinger paused mid-step. “The Emperor either doesn’t know you’re here, or you’re hoping I won’t tell him what you’ve threatened. I have done nothing to harm the Voice, the Galra, nor the Emperor. You have no right to touch me. You have no right to even impose on me. You are here with  _ my _ permission.”

The Sorrowsingers had stopped. The middle one, the main one, tried to loom from afar. Keith felt his fur bristle like a scared cat’s. But he wasn’t scared, he thought. He was angry. “Get out--”

“The Emperor has filled your head with lies,” the Sorrowsinger leader said. “You aren’t protected from the Voice’s ire or the wrath of Her favoured. You broke a thousand laws written in blood and salt stone. The Emperor’s protection defends you from his soldiers and court. Not from us. Give me your hand.”

Keith stared the Sorrowsinger straight in the masked eyeholes. Quintessence crackled in the air. He swore he smelled heavy ozone, like the growing power of a thunderstorm. He breathed it in and spoke. “Get fucked.”

Someone pounded on the bedroom door. The electric air turned dead, like a becalmed ship. One Sorrowsinger turned to look at the door, while the other stormed over to it, yanking it open. The main Sorrowsinger refused to look away from Keith. Curt words were exchanged. Keith recognized the other voice.

Volux had come. And they didn’t sound pleased either. Keith didn’t have the hope to think the anger was at the Sorrowsingers. Volux knew someone had been in the Chorus and looked at their mind. The Sorrowsingers knew it was Keith who’d done it. If Volux hadn’t already found Keith as the culprit, it wouldn’t be hard for them to put the pieces together. 

Volux pushed their way past the Sorrowsinger. Their gaze found Keith, eyed Rime, and then turned to the other two Sorrowsingers. “What are you doing?”

The main Sorrowsinger spoke. “We are here to enact the laws of the Voice, Druid Volux.”

“Are you?” Volux folded their hands behind their back and walked to Keith. “You realize the Emperor has explicitly set protections on the Prince, do you not?”

“The Emperor’s will is absolute in the matter of the material,” the Sorrowsinger said. “In matters like this, the Voice is beyond reproach. He has defiled the Chorus.”

“And what does the High Druid think?” Volux stopped beside Keith, though they didn’t look at him. “Your behaviour fuels the rumours, Sorrowsinger. You are exalted, but you are not the final arbiter of this. You should have spoke to High Druid Haggar before you stormed in to take the Prince into the Shadowlands. I will do a favour and allow you to report to the High Druid. Take that and leave.”

Keith swore he heard teeth grinding from the Sorrowsinger leader. “Your words will be remembered, Druid Volux.” Keith watched the Sorrowsingers file from his room. One closed the door behind them. He didn’t hear them leave his apartments because a fist connected with his face.

Rime screamed as it fell with him. Keith curled in, trying to shield the creature from any more blows, but none followed. Rime squirmed and thrashed, breaking free from his hands to bolt under a table and hide. Keith looked up at Volux who loomed, panting in rage.

“I should kill you,” Volux hissed between pants.

Keith reached up to prod at the potential bruise. It was already warm to the touch. He decided, then, not to play the idiot. Not when the room once again stank of ozone. “Who is she, Volux?”

“That does not concern you--”

“Doesn’t it? She looks like me. Is that a coincidence, or did it take more than the hand of fate?” He rolled on to his back and pushed himself up. Volux was as short as him, blessedly; it let him hold his ground. He worked his jaw, trying to ignore the pulling pain in his cheek. “Tell me what’s going on, Volux. Maybe this was none of my business before--”

“But it is now?” Volux laughed, bitter and sour. “I saved you from the Sorrowsingers for my sake. As a Druid, I must shed my connections to everyone and everything except for the Voice and Her laws. This--this is the last one I must destroy. But I will do it  _ without _ your interference.”

Except it had something to do with Keith. He leaned forward, his arms spreading. “Volux, you owe me the truth. We both know I’m involved. Whatever you and Thace are hiding, I need to know.”

“Why?” Volux’s hands were fisted. “ _ Why _ do you need to know? Why can’t you leave well enough alone? Why do you dig at everything? We’ve cared for you and protected you. This is how you repay us? By invading our minds and stealing secrets?”

Keith pulled back. “It’s not like that--”

“Isn’t it?” Volux loomed. “A Druid does not have friends, but you were a… disciple. Someone who turned to me for guidance in the metaphysical. I have conducted you to and from the Voice. You used those experiences-- _ my work _ \--to attack my mind with the Voice’s power. I’d thought better of you, Keith.”

Keith didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing. Volux filled the silence. “Thace will be told. You will see neither of us again, unless you attempt to raid our minds once more. If you share what you’ve seen with the Sorrowsingers or the Emperor, I will kill you after I tear your mind apart, so that I may offer to the world the little lies you hold dear. And know,  _ Prince _ , that unlike you, I am always true to my word.”

And then they left. None of the servants hurried in to speak to Keith. Hyladra was missing. When Keith crouched down and tried to lure Rime out from under the table, his hands and mind were numb. The dendin shivered in the crevice, its round green eyes hooded as its tongue flicked out, tasting the fear and ozone that lingered in the air.

“... I think I fucked up,” he told Rime. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update is the 22nd! Thank you all for being so patient. <3


	18. Chapter 18

Rime came out after a few minutes. Its flesh whiskers drooped as it huddled close to Keith’s chest, shivering. He stroked its sides and murmured to the creature. It buzzed twice before it stopped responding. Its little heart thundered and Keith tried to swallow down the guilt. The apartments were quiet as he gathered Rime into his arms and headed for his room’s door.

He’d almost run for it, at first. No one was watching him. Most of them likely wanted to give him time to compose himself before coming out. He had anywhere from a few minutes to an hour to run for it. But there were so many problems with that: he didn’t have money, it was still light outside, even as the sun set, and it’d take time to work his way down the chain of balconies to the ground. At this time of day, how many Galra would basking in the sun’s light?

When he left his room, people stared. They couldn’t see the bruise or know what Volux had said. All they knew was that the Sorrowsingers had come, bringing with them a miasma of quintessence that filled rooms, and then had been chased off by Volux who left soon after, furious and dangerous. Gryva watched him with a clinical gaze. What would she pick apart and find inside him? All Keith felt was exhaustion. 

He never should have visited the Chorus, let alone dove into Volux and Thace’s memories. He hadn’t known enough to judge whether the action would blow up in his face or not. Even if he hadn’t been visited by Sorrowsingers or burnt the bridge with Volux and Thace, it would have been pure luck. 

But he’d been dumb, and now he sat on the main room’s couch and wondered what Volux would tell the others. The full details couldn’t be shared, of course, but it would come out that he’d visited the Chorus. Volux could use that to cage Keith up. The watch on Keith had relaxed in the past weeks. Sure, Prorok had died and the Clarion were still active, but Keith had done nothing to earn much scrutiny. So far as anyone but Marmora and Keith knew, Keith was wide-eyed and tamed. 

Hyladra sat beside him until a message arrived for her. Keith didn’t need to guess the contents. She was his Hani, whatever that really meant, and they’d tell her of her charge’s misbehaviour. He listened to the bond as he busied himself with food and Rime. 

Anxiety, then cold, and then anxiety again. Her mind paced like a caged animal. She knew something had gone wrong, but the details escaped her. He imagined her marching through the halls, her uniform gleaming, and servants and lesser notables dodging out of the way. Hyladra wore importance well.

Unlike him. He placed a hand on his belly. It wasn’t enough weight to make him uncomfortable, but he’d become softer in the past weeks. The hard muscle he’d worked for over the years was now withering away. A diet of carbs and sugars took their toll. The times he’d been to the gym were few: he hated to be stared at, and the demands of his disguise dictated that he not be the kind of fighter he was. 

It was almost worse than being a Galra. He had control over his body’s tone, but instead of maintaining it and being ready to fight back, he’d let it soften. Why? Was it a way of trying to assert control where he could? A way to spite Zarkon’s affections? Zarkon had said nothing about Keith’s body, though. If he’d ruined his body as vengeance, it’d been a failure.

The urge to work out overtook him, as though a few hours in the gym would peel away the fat. His chest tightened. If he had to fight his way out of the Palace, could he? He wouldn’t be at his peak. He’d be slower, clumsier, and weaker. His time at the Palace had pulled him into a dazed decadence, one where time had no meaning and those who should have been enemies became friends.

And now, he had lost allies who could have protected him. He’d always known Volux had mixed feelings on their relationship to Keith. They weren’t enemies, but Volux had been more aware than the others that Keith was a prisoner. With Volux’s threats, Keith knew relying on Volux helping with  _ anything _ expected too much. They’d only help if Zarkon ordered them to.

What did he have to show for backstabbing Thace and Volux? A memory of a woman he didn’t know, and the lingering unease that who he was wasn’t random chance. The woman was involved. His appearance wasn’t just the random throw of the dice. Were his talents the same? His thoughts? Was he just a human reproduction of who the woman had been?

Thace and Volux knew. Not that they’d be telling him. His bond with Hyladra twinged. He felt, then, sudden apprehension and anxiety from her. It didn’t take a stretch to think she knew. What would she be ordered to do? Keith didn’t know what Hani truly meant--nobody seemed eager to tell him--but it didn’t take a guess that someone might be lecturing Hyladra or ordering her to step up the protection. He suspected, after this debacle, he wouldn’t be able to take a shit without someone waiting at the door for him.

And that someone was going to be Hyladra. Would it make her realize, like Keith had, that whatever friendship they had was preceded by the fact that Keith didn’t have a choice in this? That he was a prisoner of war. That any friendliness they had depended on Keith obeying the Galra around him and Hyladra’s good graces. It hurt to think about. He didn’t want this. He loved them. He loved Hyladra, Kymin, Thace, and even Volux. If things had been different, maybe it’d be more genuine. It wouldn’t have an end like the one that was coming.

To think, he mused, that this had all come from paranoia and exhaustion. He didn’t trust Thace, Volux, or Zarkon. Hyladra… Hyladra meant well. But she didn’t realize his situation. She believed in their friendship and bond, and ignored how he’d arrived and who he was. Kymin understood it better. Keith suspected it was because he knew the underbelly of the Empire. Whatever had happened to Kymin in the clutches of the Sorrowsingers, and whatever his doubts had been to get him taken, those thoughts and experiences cleared away the Empire’s haze of self-righteousness.

So what was he going to do now? The easy answer that he seemed to default to was ‘wait’. In this case, though, the longer he waited, the more ingrained the surveillance would become. It would become natural for Hyladra to always be there. Maybe they’d even coax him back into complacency.

And yet, what was he to do? Storm outside and find Marmora? Try to weasel Zarkon into playing nice? There weren’t any good options. Hell, there weren’t any  _ options _ . Just endure, endure, endure, and pray that the other Paladins, Allura, and Coran would save him. They couldn’t even form Voltron, though. 

The idea that he could reach out to the Red Lion came and went. If he angered the Voice, would the Druids declare that his entrance into the Chorus had enraged her? And would the Druids rush to his room to drag him away, taking him to wherever they’d once taken Kymin? He had Zarkon’s protection, but the Sorrowsingers had made it clear that said protection would only shield him so much.

All of this brought him nowhere. All his tricks and lies were finished. Thace and Volux were gone. The Sorrowsingers watched the Chorus, waiting for him to stumble through it. Hyladra knew he was up to something, and she’d attach herself to him. There was no way to contact Marmora with her there, and he had no idea how to do it in the short time he had--minutes, really--before Hyladra returned. The nights would still belong to him, at least. Though Keith suspected the Marmora agent assigned to watch over him would be exchanged for someone more paranoid. He just hoped that the change didn’t unearth the trickery that Marmora had wrought on the footage. If anyone knew he’d been sneaking out, Keith didn’t doubt he’d be removed from the Palace. And that was, honestly, one of the few ways his situation could get worse. 

He should have gone on to the balcony and screamed a bit before he went to the main room. 

The only thing he had left was a single little phrase.  _ Patience yields focus _ , Shiro always said. In this case, it meant waiting for something to give. What he feared, though, was Voltron arriving to save him and all of them dying or being captured. He’d appeared to Shiro too many times for it to not urge Shiro on. If his and Shiro’s positions were reversed, Keith would have dragged the Castle to Galran space with only the Red Lion and a tether. Any worries about things going badly would never stand up against the thought that Shiro was in trouble. And to Shiro, Keith was in trouble. 

He wished the Red Lion had never shown him to Shiro. What had she been thinking? Did she want out? Did she think the Lions, individually, could be used to break Keith out? Keith had less faith.

When Hyladra returned, her pinched mouth and stiff gait revealed she knew. Keith didn’t bother smiling at her. He slumped in his seat and tried to find that patience Shiro always talked about. What could he do to get out of this? All eyes were on him.

He needed to move them to someone--or something--else. And it needed to be connected to quintessence so it confused the Druids too. How could he do that? Stepping into the Chorus would leave footprints. What sources of quintessence did he have, then? There were the injections Volux gave him every several days.It wasn’t like he could steal it, though. 

But he had his own. Could he burn away the identifying marks, if there were any? Volux would know, but that bridge was in ruins. He frowned down at Rime who curled in his lap. Its light breaths ghosted over his pants. “All you do is sleep,” he told it, as though he did much more. 

How did Druids extract and purify quintessence? He thought back to the containers he’d seen months ago, when Allura had been captured. It’d been a clean, sunny gold. Stored in glass capsules, it’d been viscous, like the injections Volux gave. And what would he even do with liquid quintessence? 

The sophomoric idea that he’d treat the quintessence like a stink bomb left him cringing. Did the Chorus even correspond to any physical location? Would a spill of massive quintessence throw the Druids’ metaphorical quintessence compass off kilter?

So many questions and so few answers. Patience yields focus, but does focus yield answers? When his staff ushered him to bed, he spent his time on the balcony, staring out at the sunwashed city. Everyone was moving indoors to escape the afternoon heat. Rime abandoned him minutes into his watch: it scampered inside and crawled up the bed to burrow into light sheets. It chirped twice, as though beckoning him, but when he didn’t come, it went to sleep.

He could go AWOL while people slept. Just run for it while everyone hid from the heat. He didn’t know where the Red Lion was, but if he had enough time, he could find her. Their bond still existed, after all. Even if the Voice intervened, how long could she do it? Especially if Red unleashed on the Voice. But if one thing went wrong--if he got captured, or Red got overwhelmed, or if the Druids tracked him through quintessence--he’d be shipped off to the desert. And Gal didn’t want for deserts. It wouldn’t be the same desert Red was in. None of the Galra he knew were stupid enough to do that.

“Fuck,” he said. In Vrikka’s silence, it almost echoed. He bit down the urge to shout or scream.  _ Good job cornering yourself _ , said his self-loathing.  _ This is your fault and your problem. Figure it out, Kogane. _

He wasn’t even a Kogane, though. Something ticked in his mind, like the clockwork that ran inside had jumped back to life. He didn’t know  _ what _ he was. He did know, though, that the woman he’d seen had something to do with who he was. And she’d followed him from the Chorus. He’d seen her in through his own two eyes, in a dream of his own. The Voice hadn’t done anything to her presence: there’d been no outrage or an attack. The woman had been allowed to exist as something acceptable and, for Volux and Thace, secret. If her echo still lingered, what could he get out of her?

Vrikka’s silence made the world feel empty. He abandoned the balcony in favour of joining Rime. Once he’d sprawled out, Keith closed his eyes. What was a waking dream? If he waited, would the world around him change? He conjured the memory of the woman, but the details were hazy. What was the precise colour of her fur? Had her brows been thick or thin? He’d seen her in a moment that felt like it’d stretched for an eternity, but had lasted only a second. 

Feelings, then. He’d build her from what he’d felt when he saw her. Panic had been dominant, yet there’d been a sense of wonder. He’d been looking at his face in an ethereal, unnatural mirror. She looked like him: it hadn’t simply been a physical resemblance, but something that went below the skin, beyond the bone, and into the mind. 

She held herself as she died like she’d once owned the world around her. Her sweeping grace, even as she fell to her knees, made him think of dancers. She knew how her body worked; she was aware of each muscle and tendon, of the length of each limb, and Keith knew that came not just from experience, but from the awareness of what space she could take up. It was only when you were cramped and penned in that you knew how big you were.

For Keith, the reality of his size had sunk in when he was a child. Most adults had little enough time for their own children, and children without parents were obstacles and annoyances. A woman with a bejewelled daughter had shoved him out of the way on a cool autumn day. Her daughter needed a Halloween costume for a party their neighbourhood was throwing. Keith had been wandering through the mall alone, wide-eyed and lost.

The woman had cursed at him before she realized how young he was. The daughter was crying, to Keith’s confusion. She hadn’t been the one whose head had cracked against the tile. Maybe, looking back, the tears were from embarrassment. People had been staring. One man had even come to Keith’s side and glared at the woman. Keith didn’t doubt, though, that the man would have shoved Keith aside if he’d been in a rush. People lived in their own bubbles, only disturbed when someone else made a mistake and dragged them from their self-absorption.

He’d got a treat out of it, at least. The woman had bought her daughter and him an ice cream, her mouth pinched and her teeth clenched. The man had accompanied them as he asked Keith what he was doing alone. Keith hadn’t thought it possible, but answering that he lived in a nearby orphanage had made things  _ more _ awkward.    
_ You shouldn’t be out alone _ , the man had told him. The mother had nodded stiffly as she soothed her own daughter’s tears.  _ Did you sneak out? _

He had, largely from boredom. The other children had been playing, and no one cared to invite him to join and Keith wasn’t sure he would have accepted if they offered. He preferred the distance between them and him. The other children came and went as people adopted them. The only ones his age and older that remained were… He’d heard them called ‘problem children’ before. When one of the orphanage workers didn’t think any of the children were around. 

The problem children were those who were traumatized and couldn’t hide it. That’s what Keith thought now. But at the time, he’d looked at the term and blamed himself for it. He was a problem child. Something was wrong with him, and nobody wanted to see it. And if the other children were problem children, maybe he shouldn’t want to see their problems either.

So he’d ended up at the mall alone, far too young to be on his own in the more rundown parts of Toronto. Maybe he’d been lucky to be run over by the woman--who knew what would have happened otherwise? At the time, though, he’d thought nothing of it. When the man and woman had taken him to security, he’d gone willingly. The girl had stopped crying by then. She kept asking where his parents were, to which he’d offered a shrug. 

Being taken back to the orphanage had been accepted as a glum consequence of being caught. Instead of his child-mind thinking that it was bad to go out, it’d instead assumed it was bad to be seen, or admit what he was doing. It was best to take up as little space as he could, to pass by the cats of the world as the world’s smallest mouse.

The woman had the same bearing.  _ You didn’t want to be seen either, did you? _ he asked. The woman’s memory didn’t reply. He grit his teeth. He wanted more than his own memory of the woman: he wanted the Chorus’ memory, Thace and Volux’s memory. From those, he could weave an echo that maybe, just maybe, he could delude himself into speaking to.

What would her voice sound like? The answer came easily. It’d sound like his. Not a perfect copy, but one that he’d know belonged to him in another reality. Slightly higher, maybe, but still his careful and soft tone. But when she was angry, it’d have a growl--worse than Keith’s, because she was a real Galra. She knew how to use the hitch in her throat. 

What was her name? He didn’t know Galran names, so he gave her a human one, because those were what he knew. She was Juniper. She was not white as snow or red as blood, like in the The Juniper Tree, but she was his only wish. _So long as I don’t have to eat you like in the fairy tale,_ Keith thought, _or die like the mother did for her wish._   


“Will you talk to me?” he whispered. The sound of his own voice almost collapsed the vision. “Will you show me who you are?”  _ Will you show me how to escape? _

Something cold touched his cheek. He almost thought it Rime, but the touch was dry and light. His vision darkened before an unseen sun illuminated the room. Juniper hovered above him, her expression still one of twisted agony, because his mind would never forget the sight, but her eyes were warm.  _ Hello _ , he said through her.

Frustration forced his hands to fists. It wasn’t perfect. It was all make believe. What should he do to make it real? The traditionalist in him urged for blood. That’s what all magic needed. But gouging cuts into the flat of his hand meant nothing without the right words. So what then? Quintessence? It was another type of blood that he knew even less about. Using it risked attention. 

Juniper leaned back in a chair he couldn’t see. She looked down at him, her face still frozen in horror. Her features tried to rearrange in a smile but failed. He didn’t know what it would look like on her.  _ Hello _ , she said again. 

She-- _ he-- _ was waiting for him to decide how things were going to play out. Juniper needed to be more than just him. She needed the spark that he’d seen in the Chorus. Did his own soul remember the black oily strand as well as it needed to? He breathed deep as he stared up into her golden eyes. Quintessence dripped from them like tears. Keith knew that the vision was breaking down. The suspension he held the memory in couldn’t last.

Slick, damp, tacky, and oozing. The stain had flooded his mind like an oil spill, suffocating thoughts and washing away terror. His gut clenched at returning to those sensations, but he had to. He needed to remember. He closed his eyes as Juniper watched him. A new vision took form of the life-mirrors he’d stared into while in the Chorus. Between Volux’s and Thace’s, he saw the dripping taint. Was he back in the Chorus? He didn’t feel the Voice.  _ It’s just a memory _ , he promised himself. He relived the stain’s touch. This time, he didn’t jerk back or flinch away. He endured it. He waited. The flaws in his memory were hidden by the leashed panic that gibbered in his hindbrain. 

_ Stop it, get away,  _ **_run_ ** . He refused to move.The grime spilled over his moonlight-pale skin, leaving it a wet, smoky grey. Flecks of black were left behind, like seaweed from an ocean tide. The waves travelled over his arm, to his neck, and then down. His flesh prickled to goosebumps. His heart twisted as it rippled over the flat of his stomach. He tried to breathe through the stain, but it washed over his face, dipping into his mouth. It didn’t pool: its weight forced his throat to open, and it began its descent deeper and deeper. It wasn’t content with his pores and skin. It wanted to bind itself to him. It wanted to live and survive in the only way it knew how: infestation.

It was too late to save anything. He opened his eyes to look at Juniper. Her sunshine gaze had turned a cloudy grey, from which drippings of pure, inky black fell. The twisted expression she’d been created with hadn’t faded.  _ Hello _ , she said.  _ Hello, hello, hello,  _ **_hello hello hello_ ** _ \-- _

The words became a shriek. The darkness that coated him began to writhe. It burned against his skin like scalding water, yet it dried to a fine crust of black. The weak shell shattered at the force of Juniper’s chant. Keith tried to recoil, but he lay in bed and there was nowhere to go. Juniper’s hands landed on his shoulders. She pushed him down as her claws dug into the flesh and bone. He looked at her and saw a familiar panic, even as she kept chanting.

“I need your help,” he blurted out.

The chanting stopped. Juniper’s grip didn’t loosen. She stared down at him, mouth slightly agape.  _ How _ ? she asked. 

Was it him speaking through her still, or had the stain imbued her with some sentience? He didn’t know. He didn’t even know how to check beyond his own shallow judgement. He’d worked for this, though, so he asked anyway.  _ I need to talk to someone in the Chorus, and I need no one to notice. _

Juniper stared at him. She wasn’t sapient, then. She knew only what he did-- “You’re mine,” she told him. 

Every thought froze. He stared into Juniper’s eyes. Fear poured over him, washing away the black residue.  _ You’re not her. _

“Mine,” Juniper said, the  _ Voice _ said. Her hands traced his shoulders with the kind of wonder a child had for a new pet. The expression on her face twisted and stretched, as though the Voice didn’t know what to do with her face. “I’m here. We’re here.” Her brow furrowed on instinct. “Where is here?” Her claws dug into the flesh of his shoulders. Panic turned her voice to a quaver. “Where is everyone?”   


He’d… trapped the Voice? No, he thought; that wasn’t possible. She’d come to him when she saw what he was doing. “Juniper--”

“It’s quiet!” She released him and fell back, her hands clapping against her ears. “It’s so quiet. Where is everyone? Where am I?” Sad black eyes, dark as the void and empty of anything human, shed darker tears. “What did you  _ do _ ?”

Keith pushed himself half up. He grabbed her arms and pulled her hands away from her ears. This wasn’t the Voice, he thought. Not completely. The Voice couldn’t speak and mean things like a mortal could. This was the Voice’s power trapped inside a vessel of Keith’s own design, her feelings and thoughts filtered through his own ways of understanding the world around him.

“It’s okay,” he said. “You’re okay. You’ll be out soon. This is--it’s just a little snag. You came here, and… fell in?” He didn’t know. Juniper was rocking back and forth now, breaths sharp and heavy. Green blood trickled down her fur. Her claws were half-way into her palms. Keith didn’t have the hands to spare to stop her. “Juniper!” The Voice looked at him through the vessel he’d built. He almost told her to let go, or reach for the Chorus and once again be swept away by the awful din, but he needed to get something out of her first.

The black tears turned gold when they touched his skin. “I wanted to show you more,” the Voice told him. “ _ She’s _ still with you. I wanted her gone! She doesn’t belong here! She wants to hurt me!”

More of the Voice’s instincts given words. Who was ‘she’? Keith suspected it was the Red Lion, but at this point, who knew what waited in the recesses of his mind? For all he knew, Juniper’s memory had piggy-backed into his mind and the Voice hated it. 

Keith rubbed his thumbs over her knuckles. She breathed deep, her chest shuddering. “I don’t want to talk to her, Juniper. I just want to have time to myself and maybe talk to friends. You can understand that, can’t you? You know what it means to want to be alone.”

“No,” Juniper said. “Why would anyone want to be alone?” Her hands curled around his. It was like holding embers.

Keith didn’t have an answer for her. What could he ask of the Voice that she would give? And would she even remember agreeing once she was herself again? A headache pressed against the back of his eyes. This wasn’t what he’d wanted. He refused to think anything more than that: what if she heard, after all?

“Some of your servants have been very… mean.” What a word for it. “I want to stay out of trouble. They might hurt me otherwise.” Juniper stared at him blankly. He took another tack. “I love you,” he lied. Her claws were stained green; droplets dripped down her forearms. “But I think--I think someone I know might not. And that’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“Who?” 

Keith forced back the impulse to cringe back. Her voice, though quiet, had the ferocity of an injured animal. “It was one of your chosen. A Sorrowsinger. They were cruel, dearest.” He sounded like an exaggerated Zarkon and he hated it. “They told me to stop talking to you. They didn’t care what you or the Emperor wanted. Only what they did.”

Her claws were out of her skin, while her hands hovered above Keith’s head now. The little drops of blood speckled his bare skin--which was strange, he thought, since he hadn’t had that in a long while. Her fingers curled until the nails stabbed outward, as though about to attack. Her voice shook. “Who?”

“I don’t know their face or name--”

She lunged forward, knocking him on to his back. Her nails stabbed into his face. She clutched him tight, her dark eyes wide as she stared into his. It was like the air in the room had been sucked out. Like he was deep in space without a suit. He struggled as her nails dug deep. Red spilled down his face. His mind ripped. A vision of what he’d seen flashed over his mind’s eye; the Voice grabbed it and tore it from the tapestry, leaving a hole where it’d once been. He choked, even when the air returned. The wounds weren’t simply on his face.

Juniper leaned--no, the Voice leaned back. Her expression looked terrified, but deep in her black eyes, he saw satisfaction. “Mine,” she told him. She raked her nails over his eyes, and the vision shattered.

Rime snuffled against him, wrapped in dreams. The dark ceiling reflected his Galran form. His body was wrapped in sheets. He was slightly cold--likely because the balcony door was open, and the afternoon was almost over. How much of it had been real? He didn’t know. How much of it he wanted to be real, he didn’t know that either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update is November 5th! <3
> 
> ETA: Update changed to 16th. Details on Tumblr!
> 
> ETA of the ETA: Update changed to the 24th due to RL problems. I promise the story'll be worth the wait!


	19. Chapter 19

Something sharp jabbed its way out from inside him. Searing hot, the unseen blade twisted between his ribs. He gasped. His hand flew to his chest. The knife’s tip poked at the skin, threatening to rip it and break free. Screams echoed in his skull, their dying words a yowl of pure pain. Panic came, but it wasn’t his. It stank of blood, shit, and sweat.

And then came the sweetest of smells, the smell of decomposing bodies. The heat of the world outside the Palace took the festering bacteria and turned it to a hive of liquid flesh and hungry filth. The fat that clung to bones and muscle oozed free, spreading slick across the stone floor. Blood rotted from ruby, to wine, and then to mahogany. Days later, it would be a putrid slime, the colour of rotten cherries. 

Dust would settle over the butcher’s work. But who was the butcher?

The sensations didn’t pass. He fell on to his back and grabbed at his chest. Rime screamed and scuttled away. In the distance, he heard people yelling. It came from the window, he thought, but then another wave of pain ripped the air from his lungs. Rime’s panic should have brought others into his room, but the door never opened.

When the screams stopped, so did the pain. Keith rolled onto his side, trying to hold back the food he’d eaten. Rime scuttled close, pressing against his leg. Its purr was loud as an engine in the silence of the Palace. Green eyes stared into his gold. Keith read in the eyes a question that he didn’t have an answer to, though he wished he did.  _ What the fuck was that? _

Keith focused on breathing. The exercise was interrupted when Hyladra burst into the room, an expression of terror on her face. “Keith?” she called out into the dark. Keith jerked up. Hyladra flicked the light on and dove for the bed. Her arms wrapped around his neck and she clung to him like he’d gone to hell and come back. “Keith…”

“Caith,” he muttered into her hair. “ _ Caith _ . What happened?” Gryva, Kiya, and Heida waited by the door. Each looked varying degrees of worried. “What’s wrong?” He wasn’t sure who he was asking anymore.

Hyladra had the presence to answer, at least. “There’s been another attack. We don’t know from who. Half the Sorrowsingers are dead.”

Oh.  _ Oh _ . Fuck, Keith thought. Fuck. The Voice had never been great at the individuality thing, had she? And Keith had given her a masked person who’d been mean to him. That covered quite a few Sorrowsingers. It covered a lot of Druids too. Did that count Volux? The thought squeezed his heart.

“Volux--?”

“I don’t know,” Hyladra said. She took a ragged breath and pulled away. “We don’t know how long they’ve been dead for. Their bodies--they’re… liquified. As though they’ve been rotting for days. Which isn’t possible. Some just  visited us!”

Keith didn’t know what to say. So he defaulted to what he’d learned to do best: lie. “There could be quintessence manipulation at work. I’m not sure who or how, but that isn’t for us to find out.” He smiled at Hyladra. “I’m sorry if I disturbed you. I had an awful nightmare--”

Hyladra shot a look over her shoulder to the group by the door. They retreated from view. “You’re sensitive to quintessence, Keith.” His stomach clenched. “If you were having a nightmare, it might have been caused by the vipers who killed these Sorrowsingers.”

Keith shook his head. “Maybe,” he said. “But I need to stay out of these matters. I don’t know anything about the attack, and I would only distract the Druids from their job.” He took her hand and held it to his chest. “... You’ll have to excuse me, though, if I don’t wish to be out of people’s sight until they find the culprit.”

Hyladra laughed, the sound shaky. “I will be asking the Emperor about arming you. I’m reluctant to even let you use the toilet alone. An entire banner of Sorrowsingers... “ She shuddered. “I think even Voltron would fear the murderer.”

Keith tried to arrange his face into something sad. What he didn’t have to fake was dread and fear. He’d sicced the Voice on her own followers, and she’d torn them to pieces. Would the Voice tell the others what she’d done? Keith imagined her informing Haggar like she was talking about the Chorus’ colours.

And Keith knew he’d feature in those tales. The Voice didn’t know deceit--not like a mortal did. Oh, she’d lied about how she gave powers, sure, but was she told to say that? Or did she see power as something else? What mattered, though, was that Keith’s time limit had shrunk even more. He had until a Druid asked the Voice and got a straight answer out of her. He didn’t even know the Druids’ investigation procedures so he couldn’t guess his timeframe. How the fuck did he cover this up? 

He needed to talk to Marmora. He needed to see how fast they could get him off-planet. But then he couldn’t leave Red behind, and he didn’t even know where Voltron was. He smiled as he released Hyladra’s hand, made excuses, and hurried to the bathroom to prepare for the evening. Closing the door was a relief. 

He needed to take inventory. The mental spreadsheet in his mind was dangerously lacking. Allies? Marmora, Red, Voltron, and Rime. Marmora was out of contact, possibly flushed from hiding with Zarkon’s changes to the Palace. Voltron was likely coming, but their precise location was out of his hands. He couldn’t ask Red either--not without the Voice causing a scene. 

So then. Weapons: Rime. An ability to distract. Zarkon’s favour which wouldn’t last when he found out what Keith had been doing. He could, technically, call on the Red Lion. It’d earn the ire of the Voice, and he now knew what she could do to those connected to her. At best, he could get a small knife for spreading jams if Hyladra didn’t come through for him.

His best bet was to get in contact with Marmora. It’d force the agent’s hand, but Keith had done more than enough waiting. Whatever operations Marmora had been doing in the interim, Keith could take precedence. An escape with the Red Lion could be done, and news of his escape could flood the airways. Spaceways, all Galra-infested. Voltron would pick up the news.

Yet, yet, yet. He’d be leaving as a Galra still. The Voice would have a connection to him, and she might collect his mind in anger. Hyladra would bear the brunt of the fallout from Zarkon, and what would happen to Kymin, Volux, and Thace? The last three were associated with him. They’d come under scrutiny for if they were involved with his escape. Kymin would be fine. Volux and Thace? They had too many secrets for them to not end up dead or like Kymin. 

Should he feel bad about that, though? The four of them were his captors. Volux had threatened to kill him, and Thace had lied. But he had a lingering loyalty that plagued him. Running would strip it from his bones, he thought. Volux and Thace had cut ties with him. He didn’t owe them anything.

But the guilt didn’t leave, nor did the creeping horror that he’d be returning to Voltron as a Galra. An idea struck him, then. If the Voice was gone, would he still be a Galra?  He wasn’t naturally one. Whatever tied him and Juniper together was not a bond of blood. After all, he’d looked human until the Voice transformed him. Without her strength fuelling him, wouldn’t the Galran features recede? He didn’t know enough about the Voice to say for certain, but it was a far more productive idea than anything else he’d had.

What made it better was that it was possible-- not certain, but possible, that he could act as the Druid Marmora needed. He’d just spoken to the Voice and killed who knew how many Sorowsingers. She listened to him in a way she didn’t others, even other Druids. It might be him in love with a personal exceptionalism, but it wasn’t like he had other options.

In sum, then, he needed to get to Marmora within the day. The sooner, the better, but waiting for Hyladra to give him a weapon would be a good idea. He hoped it was his knife. God knew where it was now, though. Thace had taken it and now he couldn’t even go to ask Thace for it back. He stood from the bed. How was he going to get to Marmora? How was he going to escape?

The weak answer was to convince Hyladra to help, as though that was possible. The strong answer was escape and then to find Marmora before the Palace’s security was tripped. He looked at the bed, to a dozing Rime. He wanted to take Rime with him. He wanted his knife back. Both would be hard, if not impossible. With the panic taking over the Palace, though, could he slink out and raid Thace’s room? But that was stupid. The knife was all he had of who his parents had been, but was it worth being captured? His breathing hitched.  _ You can get it back when you liberate Gal. _ The thought didn’t comfort him. 

But it  _ was _ a plan. He’d need to prepare for the escape, whittle down what he had to what he could carry, and then bolt when it became dark. Preferably, he’d leave something behind to catch Marmora’s attention. From there, the agent would hopefully find him. Marmora’s organization was built into the fabric of Vrikka, after all. 

Rime sighed behind him. Its gentle snores were a lie. The moment he was outside with Rime, it’d lose its mind. It was still a wild animal, and it remembered being free. It’d do more than nip toes. He’d fought to hold Rime before, and the creature may as well have been greased. Sedatives were the solution. The upside was that it was easy for people to understand  _ why _ he’d want them. He didn’t think there was a person who’d visited his apartments who Rime hadn’t nipped at.

So he straightened his clothes and left Rime behind. The dusk had the servants fussing around, neatening and primping the room. A low, dull anxiety overshadowed any smiles. Keith took a seat as though he didn’t have a worry in the world. When Kiya came to offer him food, he asked for Gryva. Kiya took his request with a barely masked grimace. She smelled trouble, he thought, like Rime smelled fruit: keenly.

Gryva approached him with better concealed wariness. “How may I help you, my Prince?”

“Sedatives,” Keith said, “for the little wretch in my room. I’m sure we’re all tired of its nips, but it’s taken to gnawing on the bed sheets.” They wouldn’t find there were no marks until Keith was gone. “I don’t wish to put the creature out for a day, but just a night. For when it gets fussy.”

Gryva didn’t look suspicious. She looked relieved. “I will have the stablemaster speak to the veterinarian. I imagine there must be something for dendin.” She hurried away, as though eager to have a weapon against Rime.

The mood of the apartments notably improved. Maybe Keith was desensitized to it all, but it seemed like Rime had been more of a terror than he thought. Sure, Rime’s teeth were pointed and it gave eager nips to order people about, but had it really been that bad? When Gryva returned with a vial and a dropper, she was beaming.

“What would you like for dinner, Prince Caith?” she asked as she handed over the medical supplies. “The atmosphere outside will be… grim, if you’re excuse my forwardness. The Sorrowsingers are conducting rituals, and soldiers are searching for clues.”

A chill ran through his belly. They’d find him soon. “A supper in my rooms sounds far better than enduring the Palace’s panic. You’ll excuse me, however, if I have little in the way of appetite. It can be brought to my room for later attentions, yes?”

He tried to imagine speaking like that with the other Paladins, or Allura and Coran. They’d think he’d lost his mind. At some point, though, the formality and devouring of a thesaurus had become natural. How else would he speak, if not for that?

Nobody came to his apartments. The relief he felt was keen. The entire game would have been over if the Voice had spilled his name early. He didn’t doubt she’d eventually give it, but for now, he could wait in safety. Rime woke hours later, in as foul a mood as ever, and Keith trialled the droplets Gryva had given him. A single drop sent it to a doze; two put it right out. Any more, and Keith worried it might hurt the creature. 

“The veterinarian didn’t have much in the way of directions,” Gryva had told him. “She doesn’t tend to dendins beyond… clearing them from crops.”

Keith read between the lines.  _ Clearing _ likely meant extermination. Rime was, after all, a pest. A cute one, but a pest. “But she said it wouldn’t hurt Rime?”

“It’s a mild sedative for bru, and they’re of similar size.” Gryva had frowned. “I would advise being careful.”

He wouldn’t have much of an opportunity for that when he escaped. When the sun had set on Vrikka and the moons were out, Keith felt a sense of placid unease settle over him. This was it, he thought. Everything was coming to an end, whether he was caught or truly escaped. It was his final night at the Palace. He’d never see Gryva, Kiya, or Heida again--at least until he helped liberate the planet. Even then, they could die in the conflict. And would they forgive him for running? He didn’t know what would happen to them. Maybe Gryva would get in trouble for helping him get the droplets for Rime.

He hated the dread. What he hated more was the panic that stole over him when Hyladra came to him, leaned in, and whispered an  _ I’m sorry _ . No weapon, then. Zarkon was still wary enough to keep him from that. Keith smiled, though, and waited another hour before he made his excuses for bed. 

Did Marmora still have control over the cameras in his room? There was no way to know. He couldn’t leave a message there for Marmora to see: if a Zarkon-loyal soldier watched, he’d find a dozen guards at his door within a minute. So he needed to organize discreetly. 

Rime was still asleep. Keith put the creature on his bed as he wandered his room, as though looking for something. It let him take in what he’d need and how he’d disguise his packing. A laundry bag would be good for clothes, but it’d also weigh him down and earn notice. A tied blanket would be just as noticeable too, even if it’d be easier to carry. If he played it smart, he’d bring something that could carry a bit of food and Rime--nothing more, nothing less. It’d force him to hunt down Marmora after a day of waiting to meet.

Which brought him to another problem: how was he going to get a message to Marmora that the Palace wouldn’t understand? The answer struck him then. The Peace Tower. That’s where they’d met the first time. No one else knew they’d been there. The problem became that Keith couldn’t get up without appearing on a dozen camera feeds. He’d already be struggling to go by unnoticed. 

And then there was leaving the message. Leaving it in his room would mean it’d be suppressed. It’d need to be public. He’d have--at most--minutes to do it in. Yet he didn’t have anything convenient like a can of spray paint, or even a proper knife. The most he had was a little jam knife that Gryva had left on the remains of his dinner.

Every second he wandered, his mind desperately searching for a solution, was another moment in which the remaining Sorrowsingers and Druids could find the truth. He tried to ignore the anxiety as he searched the room for something. They’d never given him paints to use. The tablet was useless--he didn’t know if it was connected to Galran internet, and he wouldn’t know how to type the message he’d need to send and where he’d leave it. Mashed food could act as a pseudo-paint, but it’d be easy to wash away and would take forever to apply.

“Fuck,” he hissed to the quiet room. There wasn’t anything for him to do. All the shelves were books, whose pages would be blown away, and shattering all the furniture and using it to leave a message would only need one good kick to be unreadable.

There were other rooms available on the trek down to the ground. If he slunk into an empty room, could he raid it fast enough to escape notice? Would the other Galra have cameras set in their rooms? Would they even have something like paint, or enough of it to leave long-lasting graffiti behind? For all he knew, the Galran servants would cart out a sandblaster within minutes of him leaving. They’d take a picture or two of what he’d done, for evidence’s sake, and then it’d be scoured away.

How did he tell Marmora where he was going, then?

There wasn’t time to keep fussing about it. If inspiration struck, it’d strike. He took a small dish from the platter on his desk and gathered nuts and dried berries. They’d last the best for the trip. He didn’t know how long he’d be on his own, but the beating sun wouldn’t help any meats or ripe berries. He used a cloth napkin to bundle up the food. His body shielded it from the camera’s sight, but Keith didn’t doubt that, when replayed, the now-knowing viewers would realize his work.

Rime’s snores were quiet with the drop-induced sleep. It worried him. Was it simply a deeper sleep, or a sign of it doing harm to Rime’s body? He slipped the bundle of food into the folds of his clothes and edged over to the dendin. A hand against its stomach didn’t wake the creature. Keith hated the droplets. It wasn’t natural for Rime to sleep like it was. Rime was a squirming creature, a noodle-dragon-cat-bird alien that had an attitude problem. It wasn’t supposed to be sedated and wrapped in blankets.

Was he projecting onto Rime? Probably.

He found a little quiver-like bag of reeds. Decorative, but it was crafted from leather and had give. It would fit Rime nicely, as well as the little bundle of food. He stared at the jug of water on the desk, but he knew he couldn’t bring any of it with him. The only upside was that both his current form and Rime were designed to endure the desert. A day without water wouldn’t kill him--not like it might his human form. He dumped the reeds on to the floor, scooped up Rime, and slid the little creature into the quiver. It didn’t stir. 

The good thing about the quiver was that it had a band from which it hung from a hook. It let him put it over his shoulder. What concerned him was the lack of a cap or lid. If things turned to a chase, Rime was liable to fall out. He’d have to be careful when he jumped from balcony to balcony. He didn’t want to hurt Rime, and he also doubted the droplets would keep it asleep if it went skittering over stone floors.

The quiver whacked his back when he swung it over his shoulder. Rime grunted and snored on. He angled himself to the balcony, took one last look around his room, and decided he’d have to pray that Marmora figured out where he went before Zarkon did. The balcony’s view of Vrikka filled his vision and he took a long, deep breath of night air.

This was it. He went to the edge of his balcony and looked down. Nobody watched the city in his row--further up, he saw lantern light, and a group around the bottom level ate outside. He’d sneak past their notice, though, so long as he didn’t go tumbling. It’d be an inglorious end to everything--including his life. He backed up, preparing to jump.

“Keith?” He froze, his limbs locking. “What are you  _ doing _ ?”

He looked back into the room, eyes wide. Hyladra was at the door. She had a knife in hand--not his knife, but a knife that could pass as a weapon. “Uh,” he managed.

She strode through the room. He almost leapt, but he wouldn’t be able to land right and he wouldn’t be able to outrun the soldiers she’d call. All that was left, he thought, was to bargain and distract. She grabbed him by the forearm and yanked him inside his room. Rime rolled over in the quiver, oblivious.

Her claws dug through his clothes. “You were going to run,” she said, voice cracking. There were no tears in her eyes: just a kindling fire. Her grip tightened. “After all of this, and you were going to  _ run _ .”

“If our positions were reversed,” he snapped, “wouldn’t you do the same?”

She reeled back, as though struck. “I wouldn’t betray you!” She released him, though, and turned away. Her shoulders shook under the weight of her contained rage. “This--we have treated you kindly. My position--my  _ life _ !--depends on this. And you were going to vanish into the night. For what? Those who’ve never come for you?”

Too far, too far, and his own anger surged. “If they’d come, you would have killed them!” He didn’t want their friendship to end like this. They were meant to be enemies, he knew that now, but it still hurt. “I need to leave, Hyladra. This was never my home. This was never my body. I love you-- _ loved _ you--but we both knew this was coming.”

“... I can’t let you go.” Her voice was soft. “You know that. This is my duty as a soldier, a Galra, and your Hani. If you run, I’ll chase you to the ends of this universe.”

So that was her allegiance, in the end. He could talk about the crimes of the Empire, but what was the point? She wouldn’t believe him. And yet-- “You know what the Empire does?”

“Protect?” she said in return. “Provide food and medical aid? Voltron destroys the good inside the Empire. It forces us to arms.” Her voice shook. “Your actions have killed millions. Instead of saving planets from earthquakes or solar flares, we’re forced to fight you.”

“And the beasts?” Keith’s tone grew louder, angrier. “What about those who are slaves? You’re saying if I asked those people you save, every single one of them, they’d all say they love the Empire. That they’re not afraid of their planets being harvested, like Keyka, or desperate to save other species, like Shayan?”

Hyladra shook her head. “I don’t know those people--”

“Well,  _ I do _ .” The rage was molten inside him, like the Red Lion’s own ferocity. “The universe is terrified of the Empire. Even some of your people are terrified of what you do.”

She bared shining teeth. “A weak race is the one who dies in the herd. We do what’s necessary, Keith.”

“You don’t even know what the Empire does.” The truth numbed his lips. She didn’t know about the harvesting of quintessence, not on the scale it happened on, and she didn’t know that the Voice feasted on her subjects. “Do you know that the Voice feeds on you? She eats your quintessence, shortening your lives, and then she uses the power to defend from creatures outside our realm of reality.”

Hyladra stared. “ _ What _ ?”

He could have phrased every bit of that better. “The Voice drains the quintessence of her followers. It’s food for her. You think you live fifty years? You’re supposed to live for over a hundred. Zarkon brought the Voice here because he wanted to stop fighting wars against other dimensional forces. Which is why Voltron was created. To protect our universe.”  It sounded stupid as hell. He rubbed at his temples. “I know this sounds ridiculous--”

“It’s convenient, Keith.” Hyladra glared at him. “You’ve known all this, somehow, and haven’t said a word about it to me. Ever. You’ve gone to the temple and worked with Druids. You speak constantly to the Voice, whether a Druid is there or not. If She is slowly killing us, isn’t she killing you too?”

Keith tasted something sour in his mind, accompanying the anger and viciousness from Hyladra’s side of the bond. “You don’t believe me.”

“I don’t,” Hyladra said. “I’ve never felt weak after communing with the Voice, and the Emperor would never do that to his people.”

_ You have to go into special resting rooms after worship _ , he wanted to snap.  _ Zarkon would kill you in an instant if it meant something for a greater good. _ How did he say that without making her defensive? Maybe if he’d been better with words, he’d have thought of something. But all he managed was a shake of the head and a frustrated hiss. “Then everyone else? The Alteans he killed? The Balmerans--”

“You’ve mentioned them before.” Hyladra’s gaze sharpened. “I looked into them. They were rebels and destroyed a half dozen ships before they were subdued. They tried to work with terrorists and kidnapped officers and held them for ransom. We tried to negotiate, Keith, and they  _ asked _ to be put on their Balmera. In return, they gave us crystals. We’re not the villains here.”

He felt his jaw go slack. The lies were so brazen, he would have admired the audacity if it was for anything else. “The Balmera was dying, Hyladra. The Balmerans had almost died out, and Galra soldiers were forcing them to work in chains!”

“From the story they told you, yes. But Keith: you know as well as anyone else that people lie.” She reached out, though she didn’t quite touch him. “I know you meant well. You always do. You’re not immune to being taken advantage of--you’re just not used to it.” Her hand turned palm-up and her fingers curled. “Take off the quiver, and talk to me. We don’t have to be separated. You don’t need to be chased by Sorrowsingers.”

Keith took a shaky breath. He didn’t want this to happen, but it was necessary. He took her hand. Hyladra beamed at him, bright as Gal’s sun. He felt his tongue try to betray him, but he smiled through it. “I take it you’ll be spending the night?”

“I trust your loyalty to your fellows more than I do your loyalty to this Palace.” She motioned to the desk. “Put your quiver there. And where is Rime? Were you going to leave it?” She leaned over to examine the bedsheets, releasing his hand.

He put the quiver down. Rime’s snoring stopped for a moment as the vessel jostled. It returned to normal right after. Keith took a seat at the desk before he poured two glasses of Mahadra Spring water. His fingers moved quickly as he fussed over Hyladra’s cup. Her footsteps turned around, and he met her with an offered glass.

“I’d say we should do a toast,” Keith said, “but I’m not sure to what.”

Hyladra considered the pinkish water. “To better decisions?”

Keith’s brow furrowed. “That’s good enough.” He raised his glass. She raised hers. Keith choked down a few gulps of his drink. Hyladra laughed and smirked before she threw back her entire drink. How she choked down that much salt, he didn’t know. “How do you--do Galra, I guess--deal with that much salt? On Earth, we’re always told to cut back.”

“We must process it easier,” Hyladra said. “A Galra without salt is a fish without water, or a dendin without its cactus. Tell me, where is the creature?”

He didn’t dare motion to the quiver. She didn’t need to think about what had happened to Rime. “Am I allowed to stay in my room for the night, or are you going to make us doze in the living room?”

Hyladra yawned, and he swore he heard her jaw crack. The anger from before was still there, but it was muted now. She’d won, in her mind. “The servants will help me watch you. I know you, Keith: you won’t hurt a single one of them, even if I fall asleep.” She shook her head. “Which is becoming a distinct possibility. I suppose it’s the rush of potential combat.” She offered her hand again, but it quivered in the air, unsteady. “I’m glad you agreed...”

Her body gave a solid thump as it fell to the floor. The vial he’d asked Gryva for waited in his clothes’ pocket, empty. He didn’t wait: he dove forward, stealing her own knife and the one she’d brought to arm Keith with. How long would the droplets last? There’d been only a small amount since Rime was so tiny. Could he get the creature to behave when it woke up?

That all assumed he got to the tower proper without being noticed. He snatched the quiver and took one last look back at the room. Hyladra snored quieter than Rime. How fast would the monitoring guard take to notice what had happened? They hadn’t sent a platoon of soldiers to gather him yet, so it said he had time. 

_ Maybe they’re on a coffee break _ , Keith thought as he bolted to the balcony. The first leap rattled him to the bone as he landed. Speed mattered now, though, more than ever before. He tried to ignore the poisonous salt that coated his tongue and lips. The duty of salt, or the comfort of blood--that’s what the Galra had told him. He’d drunk from duty and poisoned Hyladra with it. He’d made a choice, one more permanent than any other. None of the Galra he’d spent so long with, had loved, would ever look at him kindly after this.

He was a Paladin again, he thought. Outsider, threat, invader. It was better than being a pet.

When he landed on the ground, he found Vrikka’s hum of life had started. He glanced over his shoulder, checking for any gaping Galra, but there were none. Hopefully that meant no one had seen him--either way, what mattered now was leaving his message. The idea had struck him when he got his hands on Hyladra’s knives.

The Palace’s salt walls were used to rain and blowing sand. Not the sharp end of a knife. Oh, it’d ruin the knife by the end, no doubt about that, but Keith had two, and one of them he couldn’t trust. He assumed there was a tracker inside the knife Hyladra had meant to give him--there was no way they’d let him wander around armed without taking a precaution.

He went to the parking lot’s walls. Off to the side, visible in the day but shrouded by night, Keith scratched a message into the salt wall. The grooves went deep into the salt, imprinting his final message to Zarkon, to Hyladra, to Kymin and Thace and Volux. But most of all, to Marmora.

WHERE WE MET BEFORE, ONCE AGAIN -RED

The knife’s formerly razor-edge had become chipped and mangled by the end of the message. He discarded it on the ground. The quiver rumbled against his shoulder, Rime’s growing snores becoming a comfort.

Would Marmora see the message? It’d be visible in the day, and Marmora had to have several agents still at the Palace. Keith wasn’t sure how well the scratches would turn up in the daylight. In the dark of night, the parking lot’s distant lights caught the gleaming wall and stumbled over the white pulp that edged his letters.

Nobody could mistake it for anything but his work. It was in English, after all, and it felt so liberating to use his own language instead of fumbling around with Galran. Marmora knew so much--they’d know how to read English.

… He hoped. If Marmora couldn’t, Keith hoped they’d just check where they last met. It’d be a disaster if he went through all this, and Marmora didn’t even know where to look. For now, though, he had bigger problems.

Dressed in plain clothes, he found the little hole he’d used once before and slipped out from the Palace. Vrikka’s streets were empty, compared to when he’d last been out. People hurried about, whispering to one another; Keith ducked away, back into alleys and side streets. He knew his quiver would look strange. Besides, if any of them got close, they’d hear Rime’s snores. 

He didn’t remember the exact way to the tower. The realization hit him as he dithered by an alleyway, trying to remember the right one to the river. It’d been weeks, and while he had a memory for routes and patterns, that didn’t make the time between his escapes any shorter. He looked up at the sky, squinting at the moons, but there was no revelation there either. 

He knew the tower’s appearance, at least. Fat, tall, and built from a material that looked like stone but couldn’t actually  _ be _ stone, because stone wasn’t made to go that high, it waited across the river, the moonlight turning the grey stone silver. It was all poetic, he thought, and very interesting, but it was not what he needed.

He could ask Vrikka’s citizens, of course. They might not even remember his face when the Empire’s soldiers came, searching. But that was a risk he couldn’t take. It was going to be bad enough getting  _ into _ the tower without leaving a trail behind him. He grit his teeth and began to wander. His mind had a faint map of Vrikka, one created by evenings spent on the balcony and the flight Marmora had taken him on after the first escape.

It wasn’t perfect. Entire sections were missing--the far right corner had always spat out smoke into the air, and why that was or what was there had never been asked or answered. Keith had always assumed it was for manufacturing, as Galran technology was so advanced, but who knew? For all he knew, it was where Zarkon had illegal materials burned. It would be fitting, Keith thought, for every daming pamphlet or record of Galran crimes to be burned in a giant pit. It was unceremonious and disdainful of the material and contemptuous of the creators. Both of those made it even more suitable.

He found the river by following the sound of ships’ horns. It was a relief to see the dark waters: on the other shore, the Peace Tower loomed. It was, as he’d thought last time, a beautiful sight. The desert rarely got clouds, which allowed the full moon to light the scene, turning the water almost-white in places. A ferry paddled through the otherwise placid waves, creating dark ripples in the brilliant water. 

There weren’t as many people as there’d been last time. The worry and paranoia of the Palace had washed out into the public. It could have been Prorok’s death, or Marmora’s attacks, but whatever had crawled into the minds of Vrikka had spread to even their past-times. No one played instruments or laughed along the shore. Food carts and painters were gone. Of the hundreds that’d been at the shores last time, there were a few dozen now. Keith kept his distance from them all. 

It took time to find a bridge. It took even longer to dodge the cameras and guards who checked every Galra who tried to cross. The soldiers focused more on those coming into the Palace’s side, which was particularly helpful. Keith attached himself to a little crowd of tourists, all of them subdued, and slunk through the checkpoint. His heart thundered in his chest as he passed what looked to be a camera. He pressed closer to a burly man and hoped that blotted him out from view.

He stopped a block away from the tower. The dark alley he lurked in was damnably clean: cleaner than his apartment had ever been, or his dorm. It looked Shiro-clean and sparse. No garbage, no leaking dumpsters, not even stray, fluttering newspapers. Keith hated it. It made his lurking less effective and far more suspicious. It put a time crunch on figuring out the tower. 

How did he get in? He didn’t doubt there were cameras all around the place. Most of Vrikka seemed under surveillance, something that would have only worsened with Marmora’s actions and his own. The front of the building was out of question. Those in the lobby would see him, and the Galra likely had face-matching software for their public cameras. He’d escaped notice last time likely because nobody had thought to look for him. But now? With Hyladra unconscious, his message carved into the salt of duty, and him on the run? Well. It wasn’t looking good.

The area that was less likely to have cameras was the back. Like any other place, the tower would need deliveries of food and drink, technology, or even a place for staff to enter. At this time of night, it might even be busy. He remembered, looking back, that their clothes were simple and in typical Galran colours. Keith’s current clothes didn’t match perfectly, but if he kept to the more shadowy areas, he might pass as an intern or new hire.

The quiver, though, would be a problem. He grimaced as he shrugged it off. Rime still slept, oblivious to the danger they were in. He scooped it up and slipped it under his shirt. Its noodle-body created a strange lump, but Rime was small. So long as it didn’t cry out in its sleep or start to squirm mid-dream, it’d go unnoticed. The bag of food went into his pocket. He didn’t know where to hide the quiver, so he tossed it into one of the shiny dumpsters.

His arms wrapped around his stomach and Rime, he left the shadows. Vrikka’s sounds gew clear. Laughter and chatter almost drowned out the low hum of vehicles and machines. In the distance, lonely ship horns blew, warning each other of approach. The desert winds were dead: the still night had frozen in rest, letting the natural sounds of a city rule.

The tower was busy, though not with the public. Everyone there looked grim and tired. Galra unloaded a truck of supplies; everything had been stamped by the Empire’s sigil. A few Galra were brave enough to loiter, but Keith saw, even from across the street, the annoyed and suspicious looks of their supervisors. Keith wavered. If he waited for the supervisors to make a scene, it’d distract the Galra from spotting him. But he couldn’t hover across the street, stomach clasped, and expect no one to notice.

He entered from behind a series of crates. Using only one hand to steady Rime, he used the other to rub at his face, as though shaking off sleep. All around him, Galra worked and wandered, and he became keenly aware of how short he was compared to other Galra. He’d always been a bit odd at the Palace, but among those who’d been hired for their strength, he looked like a dandelion among sunflowers.

A few people looked at him, but Keith kept his head high and looked straight ahead. He tried to radiate purpose, like he was supposed to be there and wasn’t a fleeing prisoner of war. His ears tried to droop on him as a bodybuilder-like woman eyed him. He forced them back to something perky. 

The moment he stepped from the patchy light into the harsh glow of the Peace Tower, he tilted his head down. Quick steps brought him through the back, around palets and behind shipping containers. He stopped in a corner to breathe a sigh of relief. Now he just needed to take the stairs up, preferably in something that covered his face. He didn’t dare use the elevator: a static camera that’d take in his entire body would give the computer systems something to match. So far, all they had was a short, dark-furred Galra. That wasn’t enough to trip an alarm.

He hoped, at least. How did the surveillance work in Vrikka? He assumed there was a wider, global system that cross-referenced what it could and categorized what it couldn’t. A single strange Galra would be marked as unusual, like a little ripple in a lake, and given to the computer system to process. But in such a huge system, one that watched every inch of Gal, that ripple would get lost in the waves.

Zarkon and his soldiers would comb the lake, searching for the right ripple, but even with technology and AI, the amount of data would be too much. It would take days of peering at ripples to find the one they needed, and by then, there would be new ripples to distract them, overwhelming the original. By then, Keith would be gone. If it came to it, he’d leave Vrikka and hole up in an outskirts town. A bit of dye or tall shoes would help his appearance.

In the loading dock, there were outfits for not just dock workers, but maintenance crews as well. Keith slunk over to the hooks that the clothes hung on. Most weren’t his size; the two that were closest were baggy and ill-fitting, but he slipped them on anyway. They were labelled as to be discarded after being worn, judging by the symbol on the collar, presumably recycled on a planet where little cloth-material could be grown.

There weren’t hardhats, nor were there masks. What the suits  _ did _ have were hoods, either for keeping the wind from ears or blown sand from the body. Keith pulled the hood up. It was loose on him and flapped when he moved too fast. Still, it covered him from view and allowed him to hold Rime tighter and higher on his body.

The Peace Tower’s halls were empty. Offices were full of workers, while guards, from the glimpses he caught, were focused on the front of the building. They probably assumed the loading dock workers could deal with their own side well enough. Keith took the first set of stairs he found. The tower had a dozen levels to it, making it one of the highest buildings in the city. Keith huffed and puffed as he worked his way up the steep steps. His Galran feet only partly touched the ground, which let the architects create slim stairs, but the sensation still wasn’t something Keith was used to. 

Rime wriggled beneath his clothes. Was it waking, or simply dreaming? He’d know it’d awoken when teeth sunk into his pelt. 

The stairs didn’t have proper wide landings. They simply coiled around each other, higher and higher; when it was a new floor, a small door led on to the stairs. The doors didn’t swing open, but swished inside the wall. How did the Galra navigate someone going the opposite way? The answer became apparent when he noticed the arrows on the walls.

He was going up the downstairs staircase.  _ Fuck _ , he thought. He threw in more energy to his legs and turned his quick climb to a frantic leaping up the stairs. Would any of this make him more noticeable to the system? How long until security noticed him, if they hadn’t already? He’d assumed they’d still be settling in, fussing with teas and coffees, whatever the Galran version of the latter was.

It took him only a few minutes to fly up the stairs. When the stairs ended at a flimsy white door, he waved a single free hand at it. It hissed open, and he hurried inside. The floor was a waxy marble, violet and white, and Keith grit his teeth as he began the search for the staircase to the roof.

When he found it, Rime celebrated by biting his stomach. Keith choked on a shout. Rime flew into a frenzy of squirming and bites, and Keith charged forward, bolting up the stairs before Rime got free and decided to hide in one of the offices on the floor.

Nothing had shown signs of setting off alarms or recording his passage. It was the one upside to the trek. At the top of the stairs, a heavy metal door waited: he shoved it open, breaking free into the night air. Rime hissed inside his clothes. 

“Be quiet,” he hissed back. He waddled away from the door, searching for a place to hide. Rime heaved a great sigh against his fur and went limp. “You melodramatic little  _ brat _ .” Rime nipped him in response. It was a relief when he found a little alcove set into a depression on the roof.

The space was just enough to slink into. It was used, he discovered, to store tarp-covered plants. Citrus and vanilla filled his nostrils, and he couldn’t resist curling up beneath one of the tables. Out of sight, surrounded by the sounds of Vrikka yet far removed from that life, he released Rime.

It made to bolt straight for the ledge and he lunged after it, clamping down on its long, whipping tail. “Behave!” he snapped. Rime flailed around to bite at his hand. Its teeth dug deep enough to taste blood. The taste, though, seemed to knock awareness into its green eyes. It froze and didn’t struggle as he reeled it back in. Its eyes flicked around inside its skull as it seemed to gape at the world around it. At the top of the Peace Tower, this was probably the most world it’d seen since being captured. Confirming that, it burrowed into his lap and shivered.

He pet it as he watched Vrikka’s sky and listened to the gentle murmur of life below. When Rime’s belly rumbled, he fed it dried berries, and when his twisted in hunger, he ate a few nuts. Rime didn’t care for the rationing: it kept bumping its head against his chest, chittering for more, but Keith distracted it with games. When it got tired again, it returned to his lap and went to a restless sleep.

The sleep wasn’t helped when an alarm shrieked below. Rime startled, and Keith clutched the dendin close. Below, people were shouting. The alarm vanished within seconds, but the gentle murmur of Vrikka turned to a harried din. Keith focused on breathing softly. The alarm had come from all around the city. His absence had been noted, and Zarkon would be looking for him.

Hyladra had awoken to discover his betrayal; heated anger and bitterness pressed against his mind, a gift from Hyladra now that her senses had steadied. He didn’t doubt she’d be in charge of at least a unit of the trackers. There wasn’t any way to apologize now, and he suspected she wouldn’t accept one even if he could. When the speakers came, Keith scurried back, further beneath the tables of plants. The voice that spoke from the streets below were loud and indistinct. It took time for the voice to come close enough to understand. When it did, the lump of ice in his stomach grew pounds heavier.

“Caith,” Zarkon said. “You’ve run, and I understand why. But there is nothing for you on Vrikka’s streets--only cold, hunger, and desperation. You know as well as I do that you cannot escape. And those you love still wait for you, cradling a sublime forgiveness. Would you disrespect that? After all they’ve done for you?”

Did Zarkon know what Keith had done, though? He’d slaughtered the Sorrowsingers and used the Voice. There was no reason for Zarkon to admit to knowing anything until Keith was back in his grasp. Keith hunched in, clutching Rime to his chest, as Zarkon kept speaking.

“I miss you, Caith.” The words were like a knife to the heart. “I had hoped to bring you to the Gilded Terrace and show you the oceans of Gal. If you return to us--to  _ me _ \--this can be forgotten. But if I must find you, picking apart Vrikka block by block? Then I will. I hold you too dearly to do otherwise.”

It was a significant concession from Zarkon to speak so affectionately of someone. Zarkon was meant to be invincible, beyond mortal concerns; here, now, he was laying his purported soul bare, all to get Keith back. Keith knew some Galra would be enraptured by their leader’s gentleness. Others might call it weak. Few would know it for what it was: manipulation.

Keith knew it was that, and yet the words dragged forth rivers of guilt, melted from the ice in his stomach. He’d hurt people, even if they’d been ones to hurt him. For captors, they’d been kind and giving until he showed how ungrateful he was. The warped thinking divided him: part of him knew that it wasn’t true, that they’d been manipulative captors, but an equal part of him looked at them and thought they were his friends. They didn’t agree with his duty, but they’d cared for him. Hyladra had given him part of her soul to keep him able to speak Galran, which he still used now. Zarkon had given him gifts and glories. Thace and Volux had blessed him with knowledge of things no outsider was meant to know.

And he’d repaid them by running to their enemies.  _ Breathe, focus, and breathe again _ . He’d done this for a reason. The others had to understand that. He hadn’t come to them willingly, and their kindness had been conditional. “I’m a prisoner of war,” he whispered. “I’m a  _ prisoner _ of war.” He wasn’t a diplomat or emissary. Running away was natural.

The message moved on down the streets. Zarkon’s voice echoed. It haunted Keith, at first. The poisonous-sweet words hurt, but exposure dulled their venom.  _ He was a prisoner of war _ became an internal chant, like a charm against Zarkon’s bite. Rime dozed in his lap, oblivious to the events around them.

When Keith dozed off, it was only a half-sleep. It wasn’t restful or gentle, not with Hyladra’s demands for him to talk to her, but a stilling of the torrential thoughts in his mind. In the frozen wasteland, other thoughts dripped from the sky like lazy raindrops.  _ If anything’s happened to him _ , Shiro thought,  _ I’ll burn Gal to the ground. _

Pidge’s fingers itched to type, but she didn’t know what.  _ Everyone’s so close to breaking. _

_ God, I just want this to end _ , Lance’s mind whispered. 

_ What happens _ , Hunk wondered,  _ when we find him and he’s not the same? _

The frozen thoughts didn’t melt, even when the Red Lion’s warmth pressed against him. The Voice screamed, but there was something different now--a wall she couldn’t climb..  _ I want to talk to them _ , his own heart said weakly.  _ If they’re coming, they need to be warned. _

The Red Lion’s eyes were quintessence-gold. He expected her to speak, to remind him why it wasn’t possible, but instead of that, the frozen wasteland rippled, as though reality itself was giving out. His mind’s eye blinked; when his vision steadied, the void had taken over the wasteland, replacing it with endless space. There were no stars, no planets, no ships. It was emptiness made form. A hand touched his shoulder, and he jolted away. A woman, slightly shorter than him, watched him with an unreadable expression. 

She was humanoid, further from human than an Altean but closer than a Galra. Her body, round and soft, had been coated in brilliant snowy feathers. Hawkish, gold eyes picked him apart, situated above a pointed beak that reminded him of vultures. Her skin, a dark black, looked silken in the patches where it became visible through the feathers. She looked striking: if Lance had seen her, he would have rhapsodized about beauty.

“You’re the Red Lion,” he said.

The Syf’s eyes brightened. Her wings fluttered, as though pleased. “Terava of the Black Roost. I am what was before, what was then, and what is now. My soul is gone, but my mind lingers. I have waited so long for a Paladin, Keith.”

Should he reach out? His hand made a half-hearted gesture, but she didn’t reach out. Her talons, dark as her skin, glinted like jet. “... I’m sorry.”

“For being captured?” Terava asked. “For becoming close to one who uses hunger against Hunger? It is a weakness, Keith, but you made of it what you could.”

He could have done better. The threads that tied him to the Galra were strong and unbending. They pulled at him the further he went. He was still on Gal, in the same city; how would their pull feel when he was planets and systems away?

“I hope you’re right,” he said. He felt, more than saw, Rime roll over in his arms. When he looked down, there was nothing. The dream’s reality was separated from the truth by a thin sheet of parchment. “... I’m not sure I can get to you.” The admission struck his tongue like a stinging nettle.  _ I’m not sure why the Voice isn’t stopping this. _

Terava clacked her beak. “I’ve waited ten thousand years,” she said, “to have a single Paladin who would listen to me and fight the Hunger. Voltron will be weak in my absence, but I do not wish for you to be re-captured.” Terava’s pupils narrowed. “They would do more to stop you.”

The darkness turned around him, like a passing cloud. Something scratched at the black, and Keith knew it was the Voice. “The Hunger--that’s what it’s called?”

“What it was known to me as, yes. I’m sure Green had a far more scientific name, but that’s what my people called it.” Terava edged closer. Her talons rapped against the glassy ground. “You haven’t seen it. Not yet. But you should. This traitorous Paladin, the one who’s hobbled by his affection for you… You’re attached as well.” 

Keith jerked back. “I’m not--”

“Even a beaten animal learns to love the one who feeds it,” Terava said. “You know parts of what he’s done, but you don’t know the history. I would have fixed that months ago, if not for the Hunger’s shard. But it is different now.” A wing that ended in a bat-like hand reached up and touched his shoulder. The darkness washed away in a sea of stars. 

Titans of void oozed across the galaxy. They spat and sparked against each other. Worse, the stars that’d once been in that half of the sky flashed, dimmed, and vanished. Winter-cold filled him, like he was swallowed by the darkness too. Terava’s hand felt like lava compared to the cold he felt.

“Look,” Terava told him. He turned his head to look at the opposite side of what he realized was a battlefield. There, among thousands upon thousands of ships, was Voltron.

Keith stared, spellbound, as Voltron drew a blazing sword. “This was the end?” he asked.

Terava laughed, creaky and airy. “This was a single battle, my Paladin. One of thousands. Years and years, all drowned in the din of combat. Voltron saved this universe more times than the years the traitor’s been alive for.” Terava preened at her own praise. “These battles--watch.”

The void surged at Voltron, as though recognizing its importance. Space, Keith knew, didn’t carry sound. There was no air to reverberate. But he felt the clash of the darkness against the blazing sword. His stomach twisted. The void burned and split apart, yet the droplets reformed as they fell.

Titans clashed. Terava’s vision shuddered at every swing of Voltron’s sword. The ships, all the size of the Castle, dove into the void. Their weapons fired beams of golden quintessence. The animalistic void reared and swallowed the quintessence. The greed cost it: the void swelled with the food as glimmers of gold became visible as veins. The veins widened from pencil-thin to wide brushstrokes, and the void screamed as the quintessence burst free, splattering the void across space. 

The rolling wave of gold washed away the scene. When his eyes adjusted, it was another scene--one of a green and blue planet, so close to Earth’s form it hurt, a fleet of ships, and a planet rotten with the void. Sparks of the void spat out, lashing at the ships. The Red Lion rushed between the sparks, its paws clasped around the Green Lion as Red navigated it through the hissing attacks.

Keith gaped. “Is that--?”

“Me,” Terava said. The void planet roiled, even in Terava’s memories. “It was one of the first infections. Green thought she could find the origin point. What we didn’t realize, then, was that the infection was contagious.” She pointed a clawed finger at a large cruiser that circled a nearby planet. “It carried the virus to that beautiful water-blessed planet. Within weeks, the void had consumed the planet’s lifeforce and all the inhabitants. There was something that made things worse--worse than losing four billion Syf.”

Keith didn’t want to know, but he didn’t have a choice. “What?”

“It made the infections faster,” Terava said. “The more it ate, the hungrier it became, like an animal scenting the blood of its kill and flying into a frenzy. Infections that should have taken weeks soon took days. By the last planet, before the void’s fourth invasion was repelled, it was taking hours.” 

Keith watched as time sped up. The lush planet that looked so close to Earth began to darken. Instead of emeralds and sapphires and topaz deserts, a grey tint took over, like a passing cloud over the sun. The colours on the planet muddied. Ships left the planet as an exodus began. It struck Keith that the infections spread through the ships.

“They brought the void to other planets, didn’t they?”

Terava didn’t look at him. Her eyes were glued to the decaying planet. “We didn’t realize that until others fell. And even then, we didn’t know what to do. Leaving the refugees on their dying homeworlds meant killing billions. There were even arguments about whether we should even provide aid. If it travelled by people and ship, every aid-worker who helped would need to be quarantined until the infection was cured.”

The grey-tinted misery of the planet had become ink-black. Where there’d been oceans and forests, there were now barren wastelands. “This was the first invasion?” Keith steeled himself for the inevitable question. “How many invasions were there?”

“In my lifetime?” Terava clicked her beak as she thought. “A dozen, at least. Sometimes we were fighting the multiple invasions on different fronts.”

Keith stared out at the dying planets. Both were ebon now, though the source, the patient zero of the infection, had only a craggy rock surface now. “Zarkon stopped this.”

“He  _ postponed _ it,” Terava said. “The void has been waiting and eating the quintessence the traitor feeds his little shard. He has his people worship it and destroys planet after planet for quintessence. Is that not what the infection does? And how long until the shard weakens, and the barrier falls?”

The void would invade again. This time, there would be fewer people to fight back. Was that partly why Zarkon wanted Voltron so badly? Not just to preserve his own reign, but as a backup in case the Voice failed. Was Zarkon worried about the Voice’s power? It relied on what he gave it sure, but it’d been ten thousand years. How much quintessence had been wasted postponing the next invasion? Was the Voice fading at all--and was that how Terava could speak to him?

“You keep calling it a shard.”

Terava shrugged, a strangely human gesture. “It is a piece of the void. Zarkon and Alfor took it to experiment on long ago. Their conclusions differed, and Alfor tried to stop the traitor.” Rage tightened her voice. “He repaid the Alteans by murdering them all, and he’s spent his time ever since  _ lying _ about what he did. All because he’s a coward who wouldn’t face the void! Who wouldn’t give his life to continue this universe’s existence!”

Her shouts had a caw to them, raspy and low like a raven’s. Keith let silence stretch before he spoke. Whether he meant it to give her time to calm, or as a scolding, he didn’t know. “You’ve been fighting the Voice for months--for dominance over my mind and quintessence. Now, you’re here” Terava eyed him, as though she didn’t trust his words. “Is she weakening?”

Terava looked away, though her feathers puffed out a bit. “You’re too snakelike,” she muttered. “Too cold when you should be fire. Do you trust me when I say she’s dimming? Will you do what’s necessary and end this charade, or will you feel the Voice is the only true way to survive?”

_ Kill the Voice. Release the void and kill it. Destroy the Empire and rebuild a universe worth living in. _

“Haven’t I always done what’s necessary?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for being so patient with me! The next update will be the 9th of December.


	20. Chapter 20

He didn’t startle back to wakefulness. Terava released him after his promise, letting him drift back to reality. The first thing he felt, when the void receded, was Rime’s heavy, raspy purr. The sun peeked over the horizon, tentative and reluctant, as though it too wanted to sleep for another few hours. Keith stretched; his neck had a crick in it, and he winced before he hunched again. The shade of the tarps, chairs, and overhang prevented the worst of the sun from reaching his skin. It didn’t save his eyes as the beams reflected. 

The speakers were gone. He didn’t hear helicopters or cars on the streets below. Vrikka’s silence struck him as eerie. Like someone had flicked a switch, and all the power had gone out. He dug his fingers into Rime’s feathers. It sighed and rolled into his touch. Trapping his hands prevented him from indulging the desire to creep around the roof, peer over edges, and see what was going on.

The sun inched through the sky, and every minute ate into his patience. Where was Marmora? Had his message been sandblasted away, leaving no clue for them? Keith wanted to lay down, but that’d leave him vulnerable if someone came up.

Vrikka came to life in increments. It never roared nor howled. It whispered and murmured, tentative and frightened. He heard ringing bells and parents calling out to their children. Below, someone puttered by on a machine. It puffed up rings of vapour that the gentle wind caught. It smelled of something electric.

The quiet almost disguised the whish of Marmora’s disk. Keith’s ears perked up when he caught it. For a moment, he thought it might be an advanced drone, but then he heard footsteps. “Paladin?” Marmora said. 

Relief washed over Keith. He scooped up Rime in his arms and crawled out from the tables. When he stood, Marmora wasn’t in sight. Dread filled him, but it eased when a section of empty air shimmered, and Marmora stepped out. They held a square device in hand and waved it over him. It beeped four times, and Marmora hissed. 

“Did you know you have trackers?” they asked.

Keith froze. “Where?”

Marmora still offered him a hand and helped him up to where the disk was. Keith’s legs were half asleep, and he was dizzy from hunger and thirst. It’d only been a night, but then he’d barely touched his dinner and lunch. “Your hands,” Marmora said, “and your skull.” They shook their head. “I can’t bring you to HQ. We’ll have to compromise a safe house and neutralize the trackers.”

“Why didn’t they track me here, then?”

Marmora ushered him onto the disk. The veil once again fell. “Because they suspected you’re working with someone,” they said, “and they want you to lead them to us.” The disk lifted below them. “My agents haven’t spotted anyone watching, but this--” Marmora broke off and said nothing.

Keith looked Marmora over, half expecting them to be shot by a sniper. But instead, their head angled down, as though they were deep in thought. “What are you planning?”

“This is not ideal,” Marmora said. “I assume you have something to do with the Sorrowsingers’ deaths. Your fleeing would be strange otherwise. I understand why you ran, but you have forced not just our hands, but Zarkon’s as well. If I leave you, you will be found once the Emperor realizes his plans aren’t working. If I take you with me, I will have to either force you to be put under and mutilated to remove the trackers, or force you into the worst of the battle.”

Keith’s eyes narrowed. His eyes had been regrown once before. Zarkon and Haggar had had him chipped. He could do it again, but he preferred not to. Who knew what Marmora’s organizational resources were like? “Is there a third option?”

“We use their tracking,” Marmora said, “and bait them into a trap.”

That… was not safe. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out, though. “Do you have the resources for a trap?”

“We’ve been re-organizing.” Marmora tapped their foot against the disk. It lifted straight up, away from the roof, and into the sky. Rime slept on, oblivious. “It would be a risk, but otherwise, you’ll have to undergo surgery.”

Keith’s eyes narrowed. This was too understanding for Marmora. What was going through their head? “You want to push the trap, don’t you?” 

“I do,” Marmora said. “They’re distracted. Your absence is unexpected, and has thrown off their apparatus in interesting ways.” The disk zipped between buildings, its invisibility shield wavering with each sharp turn. Rime startled awake, hissing, and Keith struggled to keep it contained in his arms. “If this is done well, we could write this as one of our biggest victories.”

They didn’t fly to the outskirts. Instead, they went to a slender building’s dark window. Marmora leaned in and tapped at a keypad along the window’s ledge. Glass hissed open, and Marmora crouched down and entered. The rooms were simple, largely empty: a futon made from reeds, a little kitchenette, and chests of supplies.

Keith followed. It’d be minutes, he thought, before Zarkon’s forces arrived. They’d been tracking him on the tower’s roof, after all, waiting for Marmora to come. He watched Marmora go to the invisible disk and hit one off the many buttons around the side. He didn’t see what the disk did, but decided to assume it was necessary.

“What now?” Keith asked.

Marmora went to one of the chests. “You make a choice. I can shield the trackers for a short time--long enough to get you to someone who can remove the trackers, though not without difficulty. Or you can agree to playing bait.”

Bait for what, though? It was one thing to propose a trap. It was another thing entirely to describe one. He’d left for a reason, though. “If you think you have an idea for a trap, I’m willing to listen.”

Marmora purred. “You won’t regret this, Paladin, though the Emperor will.” They drew a small sphere from the chest. It floated in their gloved hand, bobbing like it was in a rippling lake. “Come here. The Emperor’s forces will arrive soon, and we must have you disguised before then.”

Keith half expected the sphere to beep or flicker in an explosion of lights. Marmora waved it about his head and hands, and all the sphere did was bob. Rime hissed at it, only barely contained. “How long does that give us?” Keith eyed the sphere, his doubts lingering.

“An hour,” Marmora said. “It forces your chips into a reboot mode--most trackers the Empire uses are self-repairing, unfortunately.” They slipped the sphere into their pocket. “Now, we have to leave. We can wait at another safe house.” Keith felt their grimace. “If the neutralizing worked, then we’ll go to where the others are.”

Marmora took him on a twisting path between Vrikka’s buildings. They went through a handful of safe houses and secret tunnels before Marmora lifted them off to the sky. Time had been spent waiting for Zarkon’s forces to appear--particularly at the second safe house, which was a rundown tenant building’s basement.

Leaving Vrikka hurt. He didn’t have his bayard or his knife. While he still hoped the bayard was near the Red Lion, he had his doubts. It’d be foolish to keep them in proximity to each other. If Keith and Zarkon’s positions were reversed, Keith would have left the red bayard on the opposite side of the planet or even back on Central Command. Such a choice placed trust in others, though--more trust than Zarkon might be able to muster. Could Keith have stolen it back? He didn’t know. He’d already risked  so much to get where he was.

And where he was wasn’t great. He was on the run, after all, chipped like a pet. Whenever they landed--behind depots, at the back of housing tenements, even behind a dumpster--Marmora waved the sphere at him. The disk’s invisibility lasted only five minutes at a time, Marmora told him. It required full strength in Vrikka. Anything less, and they’d appear on the scans mid-air. 

“They have a history of responding to such sightings,” Marmora said, “by destroying them with missiles. So you must understand my reluctance to push the disk too hard.”

Keith pursed his lips. His hands were busy scratching Rime’s side, forcing it into a state of relaxation. “... I’d rather not be vapourized, so.”

Marmora’s base was, unsurprisingly, rundown. It was an old military outpost far into the desert. It’d taken them hours to get there. They’d been forced to hide in a rolling hill of sand. At some point, one of Marmora’s agents had built a foxhole into it using sheet metal and other refuse. Rime’s tongue kept reaching out to touch the sand-smoothed metal.

“The landscape is littered with these,” Marmora told him. “Every week, the Empire finds some on Gal, but the Empire’s reached a point in development where most people aren’t in the deserts. We travel by craft or convoy on roads. If one of the shelters is found, it’s found because the sand blows away and a drone spies it.” Marmora reached out and pressed at one of the walls. Sand trickled through the cracks. “This one will last another few months, barring the wind.”

The facility was far from current roads. It’d been abandoned when an earthquake had changed the desert landscape. Its former position as sheltered from the winds by hills had become one where it sat on a hill, forever battered by harsh blows. Square and squat, its windows were boarded while the walls had been blasted smooth by sand. There were no visible guards, nor were there vehicles. Marmora dove the disk down to the sandy hill that the facility balanced on. Keith spotted nothing to enter--a good sign, he knew, if Zarkon’s drones were as common as Marmora implied. 

At the bottom of the hill, tucked to the side of a large orange rock, Marmora revealed a door after digging with their gloved hands. It swung open with a creaking crunch of unoiled metal and sand. Marmora’s disk folded and fell to heel. Keith hesitated as Marmora strode into the dark tunnel. It took effort to rouse his usual courage to follow. 

“How long have you been stationed here?” he asked.

Marmora’s footsteps were loud on the metal floor. Dim lights were rare. Keith saw a few feet around him in the brighter spots, and had to have faith that he wasn’t going to walk into walls in the darker spots. Still, he knew he was doing well. If he’d had human eyes, he’d have been stumbling blind, grasping at the wall and praying the floor never had steps. 

“We’ve been here for centuries,” Marmora said. They answered in fits, between pauses that stretched for minutes. Keith let them speak, focusing his attention more on where his feet were going and keeping hold of Rime. “Our organization--the Blade of Marmora--has worked against Zarkon for all that time. Secrecy has become part of our hearts, though Zarkon is aware of our existence in the way a desert dendin is aware of Galra. Passing shadows, sudden strikes, sharp pain, and lost homes. Does he know the hand behind it? Unlikely. Our agents believe that death comes before giving such knowledge.”

Keith frowned, not that Marmora could see it. “Then contacting me was… unusual.” They hadn’t known he was a Paladin, after all.

“I did it against the advice of others.” Marmora’s silhouette seemed to shrug. “The attentions Zarkon gave you were  _ intriguing _ . Certainly more unusual than a Blade contacting an outsider.”

Keith’s frown deepened. “I’d been told that it’d been millennia since he showed similar interest in anyone. It was common knowledge at the Palace, but after the broadcast through Vrikka, I don’t know what to think. That makes him vulnerable, doesn’t it?”

Marmora stopped and turned around. Their mask hid their expression but Keith read it in their stance.  _ Wariness _ . “Zarkon, for all his love of order, has always been unpredictable. Has he not shown such interest in a long time? Yes. His lovers have been few, and none have elicited as strong a reaction as you. But remember, Paladin, that he was going to use you to track down the Blade. You are chipped not just under the skin but in your very eyes. How much of that broadcast was a charade? I cannot tell you that. I can tell you, however, that you should not spend time nurturing attachment.”

“I know,” Keith said quietly. Did he, though? His head hurt, not just from thirst and hunger, but from Hyladra’s side of the bond and Keith’s own stress. Zarkon had shown himself, again and again, attached to Keith. It might have been as a lover, it might have been relief at knowing someone who knew what it was like to be a Paladin, or it could have all been a lie. Who knew? What Keith knew was that going back to Zarkon would be re-entering his cage and sitting pretty as the doors were bolted shut.

Marmora eyed him. Keith knew he didn’t hide his misery well. Still, Marmora didn’t call him on it. They had to know that there wasn’t any going back for Keith. The second he’d knocked Hyladra out, that had been the end of Caith of the Blackmouths. 

The tunnel ended at a solid black door. No hints of light made it through the cracks, though when Marmora shoved it open, the hall lights were blinding. Sounds spilled out--Galra called to each other in boisterous voices, unconcerned about the threat just outside. There had to be a sound force-field or something similar--the drones would have recorded their voices otherwise. 

Marmora led him into a stairwell. Up the staircase, and they entered the warehouse proper. A hundred Galra worked away on machines and ships--some soldered and wired disks like Marmora’s, while others loomed over computers that their gloved hands pecked at. A few looked up and waved at Marmora. Even fewer eyed Keith. To them, he was just another Galra. One out of suit, yes, but nothing special. Even the creature in his arms earned him little notice.

There were offices on the ground floor and bunks along the warehouse catwalks. “We’ll need to deactivate again,” Marmora told him as they lifted the orb and began to wave it about. “You’ll have to be careful.” Marmora paused, as though gathering their thoughts. “Your reception may be… cold. Not all are aware of your identity at the Palace. They only knew you as an ally from my missives.”

That was pretty not good, Keith thought. “They know I really am, at least?”

Silence stretched out. “No,” Marmora admitted. “While I believe in the original mission of the Paladins of Voltron, the myth has lost most of its power among rebels long before your reappearance. It is considered a foolish hope--Zarkon has used the legend for his own ends. So I would be careful about showing any  _ lingering _ feelings.”

_ Don’t talk about how much you feel guilty _ . It was an obvious thing, but Keith didn’t begrudge Marmora that. They’d risked a lot taking him on with the operations and then bringing him to HQ. He followed Marmora without complaint, busying himself by coaxing Rime back to sleep. The ride on the disk had angered it and excited it by turns. They’d flown over a cactus farm, and Rime had lost its mind in an attempt to dive from the disk and flutter down to it.

Now, away from the farm and endless skies and sands, it’d decided that it hated the sounds of people working. It hissed and chittered, repeatedly burrowing into his arms to seek solace from the chaos. He whispered admonishments and hushed it until they reached an office whose door opened at their approach. Another armoured rebel looked out. Marmora and the rebel didn’t exchange greetings or salutes. They were, instead, hurried inside and the door closed behind them.

The office room had thick or specialized walls--none of the warehouse’s din made it through. Rime’s squirming stopped as it went limp. A faint sigh issued from its mouth. Keith tried not to broadcast his relief, though his ears twitched for all to see. In the room were a half dozen members of the Blade of Marmora. They all looked like his Marmora, which made things awkward. What should he call his Marmora? He’d never asked for a name due to secrecy, and he doubted he’d get one any time soon. Marmora went to the centre of the room. Keith kept his eyes glued to his Marmora. If he lost them, he’d have to admit to the room he’d lost track. Somehow, he felt they’d judge him pretty harshly for that too.

“Of all the people you could have recruited,” said a squat Galra, “you recruited his  _ lover _ ?”

“And then brought him here,” added a slightly smaller Galra. Not that ‘smaller’ fit them well. All the Galra in the room were, at smallest, heads taller than Keith. Keith scrutinized them. Were they all former military? Each stood at attention, their muscles rippling beneath their uniforms. He compared them to his Marmora--his was slimmer, though muscular, and didn’t have a tail. That narrowed down the crowd by a bit in case he lost his Marmora.

His Marmora didn’t shrug, but Keith suspected it was a near thing. “It was necessary.”

“Necessary?” snapped another Galra. “You’ve put everyone at  _ risk _ . What if he has trackers? What if he doesn’t truly believe in the cause?”

Marmora looked at Keith. He took it as a cue. “I’m here because I don’t believe in Zarkon’s vision.” He needed more than that, though, if he was going to convince them. “I didn’t go to the Palace as a guest: I was a prisoner of war.” The slightly smaller Galra snorted, but Keith pressed on. “I’m not Caith of the Blackmouths. I’m Keith Kogane, Red Paladin, and Zarkon has held me captive for almost a year.”

Every masked face turned to look at him. “ _ What _ ?” said the slightly smaller Galra. 

Marmora radiated smugness. “He tells the truth. I was reluctant to believe it at first, but pieced together from his testimony and our agents that it was real. Why do you think Zarkon has been so single-mindedly fascinated over a Blackmouth? Why do you think he had the security he did, or was known to so many from Central Command? It would have to be more than coincidence that, so soon after the Paladin went missing, someone who looked like him, albeit as a Galra, took up a close position to the Emperor at the Palace.”

So obvious, Marmora said without saying it, that only a fool would miss the logic. Nobody took the baited insult. It would mean admitting that they hadn’t seen it.

The largest Galra loomed over the shoulder of a shorter Galra. The shorter Galra--the middle Galra, the one every one of the other Galra had arranged themselves around--shook their head. Keith dubbed them the Leader. 

The Leader spoke in calm, considering tones. “And how did he become a Galra?”

Marmora looked to Keith again. Keith’s lips pinched. There wasn’t really a good answer to that. “The Voice changed me,” he said, “when I almost died.” Disbelieving snorts came, but he pressed on. “I couldn’t keep being the Red Paladin since I was like this, so Zarkon came up with Caith the Blackmouth.”

Stares. A snicker. The Leader considered him, arms crossed. “You’ve seen proof of this, Blade?”

No names, then. Keith hadn’t earned them yet. Mamora gave a sharp nod. “He knows things he shouldn’t,” Marmora said. “And the Emperor showed ridiculous favouritism. He’s also the hand that killed General Prorok, Leader, and stole the documents of the final shipment.”

_ That _ stopped the snickers. The stares intensified. “You poisoned him?” the largest Galra asked in gravelly tones.

Keith held Rime close. The creature dozed, oblivious to the situation. He envied it. “I did. It was necessary.”

“Do you know the reason you did it?” The Leader watched him through dark lenses. 

Keith’s grip on Rime tightened. “... I assumed a distraction for the attack on Vrikka, but I’m still not sure about that.”

“So you killed someone who’d welcomed you as a stranger, for a cause you knew nothing about, on the orders of someone who claimed to hate the Emperor?”

The Leader’s words made him wince. “Yeah. I guess.” He shrugged, as though that made any of it better. He felt stupid as the Galra around him contemplated his answer. Nobody seemed content with it, least of all Keith.

“You’re certain you weren’t followed?” the slightly smaller Galra asked. Their voice came out waspish. 

Marmora eyed them like they were an insect before Marmora looked away, dismissing them if not their question. “We weren’t followed. The journey was long enough to see to that. Leader, do you accept the Paladin’s story? It’s not the only news I bring.” 

Was it just Keith’s imagination, or did he hear smugness in Marmora’s voice? The tone meant only one thing. They were going to share what Keith could do. None of the other Galra rushed to talk about their belief, though. Most eyed Keith and then their leader. 

“I can accept it for now,” the Leader decreed. Tension released from the room. Keith felt like he could breathe again. “What other news do you have, Blade?”

“The Paladin can commune with the Voice.” Gasps, stares, one of the Galra even edged away from Keith. “In fact, he used that to kill Sorrowsingers.”

Keith winced. He’d admitted as such on the flight, but it still felt like a stupid thing to have done. In desperation to fix his situation, he’d made it several times worse. But he owed Marmora an answer for demanding rescue. The largest Galra puffed up at the statement, as though they were ready to take on Keith and the metaphysical threat he posed. It didn’t matter that Keith was half their size. The sheer immensity of the Voice’s power put him on level with an attacking Druid.

Keith didn’t know how to feel about that. He didn’t know how to feel about any of it, really. Of all the things he’d done, he’d meant to do maybe a third of them. Telling anyone that would get him laughed at, because who would believe that? Or they’d think he was an idiot. Keith was fairly certain he agreed with the hypothetical assessment. Everything he’d touched had turned to shit. 

People still watched him. Keith knew they wanted him to defang and declaw himself. He didn’t know how to do that. So he shrugged and nodded and spoke quietly. “I only meant to kill one.”

That earned him derisive laughter from the slightly smaller Galra. The Leader made a swift cutting motion with their hand, and the laughter vanished. It echoed in Keith’s ears. 

The Leader’s voice washed away the laughter. “It is better that you killed more. If they hadn’t died then, they would have killed others.” The Leader broke free from the group to loom over Keith. Their voice didn’t soften and they didn’t touch him. “Where did you learn to speak to the Voice?”

Keith shot an uneasy look at Marmora. This was their leader, but did Keith want to talk about Juniper or Volux? Not really. Still, they were sheltering him and Marmora had deactivated his trackers, if only temporarily. “She’s been interested in me since I got captured. I think--I think she thinks I’m someone else. Or know someone she used to know.”

The Leader raised a hand to their chin. Keith imagined thick brows knitting in concentration. “Would you happen to know who this person is?”

“No,” he said. The honesty surprised him. It’d been so long since he’d been able to lay the truth bare for others to see. He wasn’t used to deceit, even after so long with the Empire. It was a good thing, he thought. Being a natural liar or lacking a conscience was not good. “I don’t know who the person is. Only that I look like her, and several Galra in the Empire are hiding her existence. If she’s dead or hiding, I can’t tell you. Can’t even give you a name.” Nothing but Juniper, at least. 

The Leader eyed him. Keith refused to tense up, but he did shuffle a bit under the unseen eyes. “Your companions have been spotted in Imperial space.”

Voltron.  _ Shiro _ . “I need to get to them. With the Red Lion.”

“Even in your current form?” the Leader asked.

He hated it. The frustration that bubbled up was lava-hot and destructive. “The universe needs Voltron. Whether I’m like this or not, I’m the Red Paladin. You might not believe in Voltron anymore, but I do.”

“Ferocious,” the Leader murmured. “As befits your Lion. You understand your position, then. You are a potential threat to the Blade of Marmora, though your connections with Voltron and the Emperor make you a threat worth accommodating. But if you turn back to the Emperor, Paladin, a thousand blades will be at your back.”

Keith stared at the Leader. “If you wouldn’t go after me,” he said, “I wouldn’t trust you with this.”

_ That _ earned murmurs of approval throughout the room. None of the Blades unmasked, nor did he get names. But when Marmora loaded a map of the desert they were in, Keith had a spot at the table. 

“The Paladin has neutralized trackers that, when reactivated, can be used to lure Zarkon’s forces in for an ambush.” Marmora tapped and swiped at the map, showing locations Keith didn’t recognize. He didn’t ask questions about them, though he tried to find the links. “While in ordinary circumstances, I would argue for a diversion as we assault the Palace. In this case, though, our friend and--if you’ll excuse it, Paladin--bait can destroy the Voice.”

“Problematic for a diversion, yes.” The Leader watched the map flicker through destinations. “What do you propose?”

“There are two options, from what I see.” Marmora turned to face the group. “We could surgically remove the trackers and leave them at a distraction point. Zarkon would be suspicious, however. Then there’s bringing him along for an attack--we infiltrate, activate the trackers, and use their rush to capture the Paladin and get him away from the Voice to spring a trap. Though I am unaware of the state of the Blade’s fleet.”

The Leader leaned forward. Keith imagined them squinting at the map, or scowling at it. “In poor repair. Our attack on Vrikka hobbled the larger cruisers. We may be able to use our undercover agents for sabotage. A single bomb’s effectiveness would increase greatly when the falling ship is atop others.”

“You’ll escape surgery, then, Paladin.” There was a hint of teasing to Marmora’s voice. It didn’t comfort Keith. How would they have taken the trackers from his eyes, after all? Both Marmora and the Leader had considered the idea. “We’ll need to tell him about the--”

“We will,” the Leader said. “... Antok, stay. The rest of you, return to your duties. Repair the crafts as quickly as you can. Paladin, I believe it best if you put away the dendin. You will be needed elsewhere.” Keith’s grip tightened on Rime, even though he knew the Leader was right. The Leader noticed his grip. “Nothing will happen to the creature. It can simply sleep and be fed while you work.”

Rime would get in the way. It’d be unruly and grumpy, as it usually was, and it’d cause problems as they planned. It wasn’t like he could bring it to the Voice either: he didn’t need distractions while doing something he wasn’t a hundred percent certain he  _ could _ do. It hurt to follow Antok--the largest Blade--to a series of cages deeper into the offices of the Blade’s building.

Most cages held creatures he’d never seen before. The rest were bru. “What are the others?” he asked. 

Antok remained silent as they opened a cage and motioned to the empty interior. When Keith hesitated, they spoke. “They’re used to camouflage our movements and fool heat sensors. If there are tracks left around the compound or a scan is incoming, these creatures are released to disturb them. Others are pets.” Antok nodded at a stack of crates, full of lizards in a thousand colours. “Even a rebel gets lonely. Your dendin will be fine.”

Rime was asleep when he put it in a crate. The soft blanket it curled into had geometric diamonds of purple and black. It looked soft as satin but bushy like a piled carpet. A little bowl of clean water was to Rime’s side, and a pile of straw was at the back of the crate, likely for droppings. It was, he thought, a good home. A comfortable one. He still didn’t feel any better as he left Rime. It’d be terrified when it woke. He’d need to make it up to the creature when this was over.

All he wanted, though, was it and him to be safe. Could he have that? He wasn’t sure anymore. 

When he returned, the Leader had taken a seat in front of the map while Marmora mapped route after route. They referenced numbers and designations Keith didn’t recognize, but assumed were units of rebels. Antok hovered over his shoulder, as interested as Keith but likely with far more knowledge on what was being said. 

“We’ll need to find a suit small enough for the Paladin,” Marmora mused as they marked another route on the maps. 

The Leader laughed softly, more of a huff than anything else. “Even if he’s in armour, he’ll be noticeable. What Galra is as short as him yet still involved in combat?” The Leader eyed Keith. “It may be necessary for you to wear taller boots. Can you manage?”

He’d never worn heels in his life. “I’ll figure it out.”

“Good,” the Leader murmured. “I can give you a varga at most. Once we’re within the Voice’s complex, you can discard the shoes for something more comfortable as we won’t be in immediate sight. But from the ship, to the disks, to the depths of the complex, you’ll have to be in boots with a heel.”

He hated the plan already, but he didn’t voice the instinct to whine. “When do we leave, then?”

“As soon as possible.” The Leader stood. He wasn’t as tall as Antok, but he was immensely in width and still taller than Keith. “Put him in uniform, Antok. The moment the Firestorm is ready, we leave.”

Keith looked to Marmora. The mask hid their expression, but their shoulders were tense, as was their stance. Keith almost asked their name, if only so he’d have someone to mourn when--if--something went wrong. The grim question died in his throat when he saw what the map looked on.

It was a sprawling complex of fortifications, laboratories, and a large hole in a mountain that led deep underground. Military installations surrounded the mountain’s mouth. Some were simply large guns. Others were huddled craft, ready to rise like heat from the ground and swarm any coming threats. Keith imagined the radars and sensors and the watchful eyes of the Empire as they strove to protect the creature beneath the sands.

How large would the Voice’s cave be? How big was the Voice itself? He couldn’t guess, but something in his heart sunk. But something still hadn’t been answered--something just as important. “What about the Red Lion?”

The three turned to look at him. None of their faces were visible, and they broadcasted nothing in their stances but confidence. “We can scramble two ships for a distraction,” the Leader said. “But you’ll have to rouse the Red Lion.”

Was that even possible? Keith thought he had a strong bond with Red, but it would have to navigate not just out of the base’s fortifications , but across the planet to find him. He didn’t doubt it’d be pursued by as many ships as Zarkon could spare during the attack on the Voice. 

“She’ll need help to escape the bonds the Empire has her in.”  He wasn’t completely sure what those bonds were. “They’re stopping her from flying, and a distraction won’t be enough to get her free.”

Antok and Marmora shared a look from behind the Leader. They had to know how important it was to get Red from Zarkon, but Keith suspected he was crossing some unseen and unspoken boundary by speaking. Was he supposed to defer to the Leader? The idea seemed like nonsense to him. He knew the Blades did but Keith wasn’t a Blade. He was an ally.

The Leader’s head tilted down as they thought. “Antok, is the Sojari flight-capable?”

“It will need cover,” Antok said. His voice still surprised Keith. Low, quiet, almost a purr. “It received extensive damage to its engines during the Vrikka assault.”

“We’ll give the distraction the Ghen too. Ulaz, put together a team. You’re going with the Paladin to the Voice, but I prefer your expertise on Imperial bases.” The Leader straightened. “And Paladin… You will have to tell the Lion the plan, and convince it to follow the distraction to the assault on the Voice. I suspect you’ll have need of it there.”

But he’d have her back, he thought, and that was what mattered. Once he was piloting Red again, he’d have a lot less to fear. 

So long as he didn’t have to fight Zarkon alone again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update is the 29th! It'll be a big one. <3


	21. Chapter 21

They dressed him in a dark purple uniform that clung to his body. He wasn’t sure what to make of it, other than the heeled boots. Antok had watched him totter back and forth in a lone office, patient and ready to steady Keith whenever he looked like he was going to topple. It didn’t take the full varga the Leader had offered. Keith learned to walk and grit his teeth at the pain. After a few minutes, he started to give little hopping jumps. Once he’d mastered that, he surged to a sprint, bouncing from wall to wall as though he raced an invisible clock. Antok lunged forward, hovering and ready for Keith to fall, but he never did. Even when he incorporated jumps into the run. He wobbled once but turned the fall into a somersault, lunging back to his feet after. 

Antok contemplated Keith who was bent over, panting. “... You have talent.”

Keith looked right at Antok. “Jumping around isn’t a talent.” He straightened, though he winced at the feeling of sweat along his body’s crevices. “It’s a basic human--Galran--function.”

“Less than you think,” Antok murmured. He stood, straightening from his crouch. Keith’s mind drew comparisons to golems, to giants, even to trolls, but none of that was far to the considerate mind he kept getting glimpses of. “Come. We must arm you. You use swords, correct?”

“I can use daggers too,” he said. He frowned, his brow furrowing. “... Swords would be better, though.” The Galra were too large. Using a knife demanded close proximity, and he wasn’t as fast as he’d been before capture.

Antok didn’t question his logic or give input. He simply left the room and returned, moments later, with a long blade. Silver and a strange shimmering amethyst, it curved into a hook--perfect, Keith thought, for gutting someone. It had no marks on it, though there were grooves for his hand to settle in. Keith took it before he did a few practice slashes and stabs. 

Antok watched him. “You’re slow with a sword,” he said.

Keith winced. “I am. I haven’t been able to practice.” He wasn’t sure what he would have done if he could. “I won’t be dead weight, I promise. I’ve still got some tricks.”

“You’re clever enough to survive the court and captivity.” Antok tilted his head to the side. “I choose to believe you, Paladin.”

And that was that, for Antok. Whatever Keith had shown him in running around like a raging dendin, it’d worked. Keith was ushered from the room, given a sheath for the sword, and sat in another room to wait. He spent his time looking over the blade. It was… familiar. Dangerously so. Where had he seen it? The light glinted off the sword’s edge, and something clicked.

It was made from the same material as his knife. 

They didn’t have similar markings, nor did they share the same design. But the strange, unearthly amethyst that’d entranced him as a child lived on in the sword. He lifted it again, his breath trapped in his lungs. He balanced it on the flat of his hand. It remained, unmoving and perfect. It had the same strange weighting--where it felt like nothing to wield, yet was still perfectly balanced by the unknown smith.

Where the hell had he got his hands on a Galran blade as a child? The answer that came was shoved back, kicked from his mind only partly from anger. For all he knew, the same material could be found on Earth, and crafting it required the same balancing. There were stranger coincidences in the universe.

But why, a traitorous voice asked, had he been at the centre of them all? He’d gone to the shack, called there by some unseen need, and that was where they’d found the first Lion. How had he known there was something strange about it? Why had he been obsessed with it in Shiro’s absence? Juniper’s face flickered in his mind, and his stomach twisted. 

“I’m not ready,” he whispered. Would he ever be, though?

Other Blades collected him soon after. The warehouse bustled with action and shouts. Commanders herded their soldiers and mechanics about, driving them to hurry. There were grumblings, but most had voices alight with excitement. Keith wondered how long they’d been waiting for the moment to strike: how many of them had been fighting the Voice and Zarkon for decades? The Blade was old, though not to Zarkon. They were rebels of a different stripe than the Clarion, the oblivious, hungry, idiotic Clarion.

Would Qore have worked for the Clarion--cared at all about their cause--if she’d known the nature of the Voice? He doubted it. She’d cared too much for her people to let them slowly die to the Voice. So the Clarion didn’t know. What would happen to the faction when the Voice was dead? He imagined panic and anger, but what would they do to Zarkon? Would they go after the Blade of Marmora?

He didn’t know enough about Gal’s politics to guess. Trusting the Blade to know best grated. He’d laid his cards on the table and gave them the sort of honesty he hadn’t been able to give in a year. What he thought was a year, anyway. Either way, he didn’t know enough about them to be certain they knew what they were doing. Their spies were good, and they’d managed to get… whatever they were after when they attacked Vrikka, but how well did they do in open combat? The Voice’s compound looked as well guarded as Central Command, and Keith knew how that had gone for Voltron.

He tried to ignore his doubts and questions. It wasn’t the time for them. He’d made his choice when he’d run for the tower. Only one thing deserved an answer now. Finding Antok was difficult, but his mountainous form solidified his identity, even in a crowd of similarly dressed agents. Antok watched him approach, saying nothing.

Keith tried to tamp down on his uneasiness. It wasn’t helped by the flimsy barrier in his mind that tried to soften Hyladra’s blows against him. He’d felt nauseous since she’d woken, and his guilt worsened it. “Will the dendin be with us for the attack?” Keith asked, voice low. “Because I know we’re unlikely to have time to come back here.”

He wasn’t a child. He wasn’t pathetic. It was just that Rime had been there through so much, and leaving the dendin behind hurt. Who knew what might happen to it? If the Empire discovered the warehouse in the aftermath, he didn’t doubt they’d destroy it. Rime could die in the explosion, or be killed in any firefight. His hands fisted at his sides. The panic the thoughts conjured left him dizzy. At some point, he’d become ridiculously attached to Rime, and he was pretty sure it now counted as a weakness.

He decided it’d be one he’d allow. If he didn’t give himself anything, he’d default to other attachments--and those attachments involved Galra who’d capture him.

Antok nodded slowly. “It can be brought on one of the cruisers. It will still be in danger, Paladin. Any ship could be downed, and the fate of your dendin… uncertain. I would advise carrying it with you if not for the problems that would cause as well.”

It wasn’t a good solution, but it was a solution. He grit his teeth and assigned Rime to the Leader’s vessel. If the Leader died, the entire operation had already gone wrong, so he figured it was as good a place he’d get to make sure he and Rime were reunited if Keith survived.

His Marmora came to him over the several hours of waiting, each time to scramble the trackers again and again. Keith, by the last scramble, couldn’t find it in himself to smile. He just nodded and tried to breathe through the headache Hyladra was giving him. She wanted in--she wanted to speak to him, to convince him that his choices were wrong, that those at the Palace were worried and in chaos, so why wouldn’t he just come back?

Her voice tasted of sour anger and sounded like the rustling of leaves before a storm. She was furious. He didn’t blame her, but he also knew better than to go back. He’d made his choice. By pledging to kill the Voice, he’d become a combatant once again in the fight against the Empire.

It was the most liberating thing he’d done in that maybe-year away from Voltron. He didn’t know everything he should about the Blades, nor did he know how they saw the Empire’s future, but they hated the Voice and saw Zarkon as a traitor. The enemy of his enemies were his friends, he thought. Even if his heart clenched at the thought of killing Zarkon. 

That clenching didn’t ease when he was ushered into one of the ships. His Marmora, the Leader, and Antok were at the helm. The Blade’s ships were light craft, built for speed; there were two heavy cruisers, though Keith wasn’t in either. It made sense--the heavy cruisers would be the priority targets. The choice almost brought some relief for his anxiety. Rime’s cage was in the back, beside a small bathroom which had barely enough space for a single Galra. For Keith, though, it was roomy. Not that he went--he just popped into the back to check on Rime. The creature chirped and hissed, annoyed at its cage, but it had also tangled up with the blanket to sleep. So long as the ship was fine, Rime would live. But Keith knew that, if he walked away now, he’d risk everything to keep Rime safe. Rime was his vision of innocence and comfort. It was a grumpy violent creature, but it was  _ his _ . Zarkon hadn’t given him it. Keith had charmed and comforted the creature and tended to its every need. If it came to it, would Keith let the dendin die? Even if it risked Keith being recaptured?

He’d gone back for less. It wasn’t something to be proud of. He breathed deep and slipped his fingers between the cage’s latticework of bars. “I’ll miss you,” he told it. “If something happens, I want you to know that I didn’t want it to end like this. And I hope--I hope it’s painless.” Another deep breath. “... I’m sorry.”

Rime’s acid-green eyes watched him. Its tongue snaked out to brush over his fingers, searching for fruit. When it found none, it nipped his index finger’s pad as a scolding.  _ Come back with food, giant, _ it said. 

Keith laughed. It wasn’t happy, but it wasn’t completely sad either. Rime wasn’t a dog or a cat or any animal that formed typical attachments. It was a prey creature that liked how Keith fed it and cared for it, but it wouldn’t mourn him like a typical companion animal. If something happened to Keith, it might be confused for a bit--but so long as it found a colony of dendin or a field of cacti, it would be okay. Life could continue on without Keith. And if Rime died, it would be a few years sooner than what would otherwise happen. It wouldn’t be thinking of him as it died. The ship would explode, and Rime would have just enough time to wonder when its next meal was before its life ended.

Were these good thoughts? No. Were they useful? In a strange way, yes. The idea that, of all the attachments he’d formed, the one that still had the ability to upset him  _ didn’t matter _ . Rime didn’t have the brain power or structure to give much of a shit about anything. It was reassuring. He couldn’t disappoint Rime. He couldn’t leave it miserable and unhappy if something happened to him. And if it died, it wouldn’t understand the meaning of tearing metal and the shuddering walls. It would die, oblivious to the last second. 

_ I don’t matter to Rime _ , Keith thought. It was the most liberating thought he’d had since he’d joined Voltron. He didn’t matter. His fate was nothing to Rime. He wouldn’t hurt it if he failed, though he’d try his best not to. 

“Paladin!” his Marmora called. Ulaz was what the Leader had called him. Ulaz peered down the hall from the helm. “We’re leaving in a few doboshes. You’ll want to buckle in.” Ulaz’s mask tilted down to look at Rime’s cage. He said nothing, though, and retreated back to the helm.

Keith followed after another moment. Lingering would only feed his worries. He gave one last look into Rime’s eyes, smiled, even though he knew it meant nothing to the creature, and turned away. Rime chittered after him, likely disappointed that he hadn’t given it fruit. 

The warehouse’s doors lifted in unison. To either side of the ship, a dozen others were spread out. The larger ones were the size of the Blue Lion--not Black, as the warehouse wasn’t big enough for that. “The larger ships will meet us at the compound,” Ulaz told him. “This will be… intense, Paladin. I do not doubt that you’ve experienced combat, but you have always been on the more powerful side of the battle. You will not be this time.”

That didn’t help his dread. Ulaz scrambled his chips once again, and the ship whirred to life beneath their feet. The Galran ships were far quieter than anything the Garrison had used. They gave a soft whirring buzz that could have been a large insect  as they rose, and he wondered if the focus on silence came from how the desert echoed sounds. What would have been a clink of falling pebbles turned to an avalanche in the canyons.

The ships zipped through the air in a dead silence. Whatever propelled them, it was far and away from anything he’d studied. Keith sat in his seat and watched as desert blurred around the edges. His fingers dug into the soft seat’s arms. All around him, Galra worked in a quiet solitude, only interrupted for terse calls for things with call names Keith couldn’t even begin to parse. 

Ulaz sat beside him, a computer station in front of him. It gave Keith a bit of comfort. Keith couldn’t ask about things or press for details, but at least he hadn’t been dumped somewhere like a discarded piece of luggage for the trip. Keith shifted in the seat, the straps over him feeling unnecessary. But he supposed that, if forced to a sudden stop, not even dampeners would stop someone from going flying. 

In a strange pulse that rattled Keith to the molars, other ships appeared around them. All were silent yet thrumming with an energy that Keith hoped wasn’t quintessence but might have been anyway. The new larger ships dwarfed the Black Lion, yet were silent as the void of space. Hails came in, repeated by a wiry tailed Blade. Keith kept count of the new ships but gave up when the number topped forty.

This was the biggest move the Blade had ever taken, Keith thought. This was their final strike, and Keith was the key to it all. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that. If he failed, he’d get thousands killed and be recaptured. If he succeeded, he’d have put to the torch everything he’d known for the past year. The whininess grated against him. This isn’t you, he thought. He needed to strengthen his backbone and do what he’d volunteered to do. Then he could go home. 

Time passed and more ships amassed. “The cloaks are holding out,” one of the pilots called out. Another pilot said that the Empire hadn’t noticed them yet. None of it comforted Keith. Not when the battle was soon to start.

Ulaz called out the time until arrival.  _ Two vargas, one varga, arrival in thirty doboshes, arrival in fifteen _ \--Keith tried to meditate, focusing on relaxing his body limb by limb. When Ulaz reached over in the final varga to scramble his chips one last time, Keith refused to acknowledge it. His eyes were squeezed shut. His every inch of flesh pulsed with electricity and nerves. It was going to be a pitched battle. The Red Lion might be liberated. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Galra were going to die. The Blades’ agents were ready to strike from their imbedded positions in the Imperial army. 

Keith needed to be the best fighter he could be for the next several hours. He needed to be fast, strong, and resilient. Not only did he need to help his team reach the Voice, he needed to be able to coax the Voice into trusting him. He took stock of the forces that warred for dominance inside him. 

Hyladra’s desperation to get his acknowledgement had waned. It was a dull scratching now, insistent but unfocused. She was likely working with a search team, tracing where he’d gone. She’d have no idea about the warehouse or the Blades. She’d just know someone had taken Keith. That was all she really needed to know, as far as Keith was concerned. He didn’t know what he’d do if she confronted him. 

Meanwhile, Red had receded. The Voice hummed inside him, believing herself victorious. But she didn’t know what was happening either--the idea of betrayal and death were beyond her comprehension. All she knew was that he wasn’t fighting her and Red wasn’t there.

He breathed deep and opened his eyes. The canyons were gaping wounds in the land. The ships skimmed their top, likely reluctant to go higher because of the dangers of radar. Keith watched the oranges and purples of the land. If it were another life, he thought he might have loved to explore the rocks and ravines. On Earth, in the desert around the Garrison and his shack, he’d always explored, searching for something, though he didn’t know what. He’d breathed in the hot dry air and dreamed that the world around him was a far-off alien landscape.

“Five doboshes,” Ulaz called out. “Chips are back online in six.”

The Leader nodded. “Send out the command to slow. At two, we can accelerate for a surprise.” That earned grins and soft laughs through the room. The sparks of electricity weren’t just in Keith--they were everywhere. Ulaz’s gloved fingers sped over the computer’s keys. Keith watched as the ship slowed, the blurring orange and violets solidifying.

Keith’s hands clenched and unclenched as he slipped on his gloves. The helm filled with chatter. Dozens of operations were reporting in for the final five minutes. The Leader’s voice never faltered: crisp orders were given, and acknowledgements received. “Three doboshes,” Ulaz said. It spawned another flurry of action. 

Keith breathed deep. This was it. After all this time, he was going to be free. Finally. All he needed to do was get through this. And how hard could it be? The question tasted bitter on his tongue. Everything came at a cost, he thought. This would be no different.

The compound came into view. The photos he’d seen didn’t do it justice. An entire wall of a canyon--miles upon miles of terrain--were coated in guns, outposts, and supply points. Galra swarmed over the rocks, oblivious to the Blades’ approach but ready for combat at any sign of a problem. Keith marvelled at the ignorance they lived in for only a moment. Death stared down at them, yet the soldiers thought it just another day. When had the last attack on the Voice happened, if one ever had?

They crept closer in silence. “One dobosh,” Ulaz said. His voice was more subdued now, as though the weight of everything they were about to do had crashed down on his shoulders. He looked over at Keith. “This is going to go fast. No matter what, Keith, I need you to stay with me.”

Keith wasn’t sure where else he’d go. He told Ulaz that who snorted as he watched the computer. “Thirty ticks,” Ulaz said. 

The Leader looked over at another Blade. “And the shields?”

“We’ve got a dobosh left,” the Blade said. “More if we reroute the power from the propulsion engines.”

“We don’t need it,” the Leader said. “Prepare to engage.” The helm surged into action. From the windows, Keith saw slats opening and gun tips prodding out. Energy-- _ quintessence _ \--frizzled around him, making his fur turn staticky. They weren’t above using it, then, he thought. He grit his teeth and ignored the thought. It didn’t matter now. They might not even have a choice; if all the machines the Galra manufactured used quintessence, it’d be almost impossible to get the parts and knowledge to make something nuclear or gas powered. Worse, they might not be as powerful. 

“Ten ticks.”

“Count us down, Ulaz.”

Keith tried to steady his own breathing. This was it. It was what he’d wanted. He closed his eyes. They itched, like the chip inside them had grown larger or more powerful. The electricity he’d hated about the quintessence crackled through his skin and the meat of his eyes. His palms itched, and he remembered that, a life time ago, he’d seen little scars on the palm of his hands. He’d thought nothing of it. Now, though, he knew what Zarkon had done. Zarkon had chipped Keith like a wayward  _ dog _ . 

“One,” Ulaz said. Keith startled back to reality, but it was too late to orient himself. The ship bolted forward. The dampeners kept him from physical whiplash, but the psychological blow landed almost as heavy.

They were less than a second away from the compound’s defense. No one in the compound had any notice of what was happening. When the ships appeared, Keith almost felt the stares. By the time reason had kicked in for the soldiers, though, the Blades’ ships were atop them. 

The Blades’ ships didn’t fight like a Lion or a Garrison ship. The Lion and ships Keith had trained on were single-pilot, maybe two if needed; the Blades’ ships were multi-pilot, caged in with calls and replies, hails and warnings. Yet for all the calls and frenetic work of before, silence overtook the helm as the first barrage of shots were fired.

“Frontal guns taken out,” someone called. Their response earned a sharp acknowledgement from the Leader. The ship darted over the confused soldiers, taking up a position behind them. The Leader called for another volley: Keith watched as the complex network of guns, vehicles, and soldiers were destroyed by ragged balls of pure quintessence.

Ulaz shifted beside him. It startled Keith from his gaping. “Reports are that the Imperial navy is being scrambled. Zarkon is to be at the head. Initiate sabotage?”

“Initiate,” the Leader said. Ulaz confirmed and typed at the console. Thousands would die, far from Keith’s view. The power struck Keith in the way memories do: sharply. This was the power he’d had in the Red Lion. He could destroy ships and stations, oblivious to the souls within. That ignorance had been comforting. It’d blinded him to the cost of his actions--right until he’d been forced to confront it at Central Command.

Imperial ships rose like mist from the ground. They were smaller than the Blades’ ships, a strange reversal he may have been able to appreciate in any other circumstance. The Imperial ships dove toward the rebels. Their strange curves and geometric shapes were so Galran in aesthetic, Keith almost marvelled. 

“Evasive maneuvers,” the Leader said, and their ship dipped into a sudden drop. The dampeners barred the g-forces from visiting them as they flew into loops and hairpin turns. Keith’s mind, though, filled in the blanks. His heart-rate thundered in his ears as he searched for the pilot. There were two dozen Galra, all at their stations, but he knew just from looking at the helm’s design where the pilot would be. The pilot was an average height--for Galra--Blade with a large, bushy tail. There was nothing to grip on at the helm: their hands motioned and snapped in gold-tinged air as the ship wove and ducked.

The Leader was near them. “Get us close to the entrance. We need to deliver Ulaz’s team.” The Leader nodded at Ulaz who stood. “Cila, hover for ten ticks above the entrance. Concentrate fire for the cover, and leave the second the ticks are up. Keith, Ulaz, Regris, Beji, to the back. Keep your gear close.”

Regris was the tailed communications Blade, while Beji was a burly woman whose claws could barely be contained by her gloves. Ulaz led them all to the back where they collected weapons, disks, and little waist-packs of supplies.

Beji helped Keith with the packs, her hands quick and knowledgeable of the clasps and zippers. Ulaz spoke as they worked. “Keith to the middle, on my disk. Beji, you take the rear. Regris, I need you up front. Intel says there are five major points to infiltrating the compound, and we need to stop as little as possible. Our plant left a few viruses to exploit, but we don’t know if they’ve been caught yet.”

Regris gave a single nod. Beji grunted in acknowledgement. Keith shrugged, unsure what else he should do. They were in the ship’s belly, near the door out; Ulaz leaned against it, peering through the glass to look at their landing spot.

“Imperial soldiers are building up to take out the rear. We’re almost right where we need to be--three ticks. Keith, jump with Beji.” Beji reacted by wrapping an arm around his middle. Keith didn’t doubt that she’d pull him out of the ship. His frown deepened. He knew he was important to the mission, but he was fairly certain he could jump on his own--

The rear door swooshed open, and Beji leapt. Air evacuated Keith’s lungs: her grip was like an iron vise, and he realized, then, just how far up they were. It was a hundred meters easily. He stared down at the blowing sand and smoothed rocks as Beji’s weight dragged them into a rapid fall.

Ulaz had given him to her for a reason, though. With her other hand, she unhitched the disk from her back and whipped it downward. Keith watched, while horizontal and falling, as the disk’s components snapped from their compacted layering. By the time they reached it, Beji had curled her legs into a crouch. Her feet slammed against the smooth metal, and he jostled violently as she clutched him close. 

Below, soldiers fired. Their short-range personal weapons were of no use, but they had artillery right around the gaping maw of an entrance. Barrages of quintessence and grapeshot pounded the air. A nearby bolt of quintessence singed his nose, the stench that of ozone and iron. It forced him to clutch at Beji in turn. 

The mouth to the cave system had doors crafted from steel. For a moment, Keith was unsure how they were going to get in. But Beji dipped down on the disk, and the other Blades followed her lead. From the back of the ship they’d been on, dozens of shots slammed against the metal door, which screeched as it bent inward and ripped like paper by the end. 

All three of the disks sailed toward the molten opening. Behind, a sudden bang rang. Keith jerked his head around to see something that made his stomach drop. Hundreds of large Imperial ships had arrived. And he knew, in his heart, the not so distant past bore down on him like hounds after a fox. Even when Beji steered them into the maw, away from the ships’ views, he knew they were coming for him.

The second wall went down when Regris speed-hacked it, activating the latent, then-caged viruses. Beji took the opportunity to shove Keith onto Ulaz’s disk before she pulled out a rifle. While Regris worked on each door, she sniped at approaching enemies. Ulaz helped, his ammunition explosive.

From the third gate on, they moved into the tunnels. The doors were too fortified to rush, and the Imperial systems, Regris said, were quarantining the viruses too quickly. Inside the belly of the compound, the tunnels were wide enough to fit cars--and more than wide enough for the parade of disks that whizzed through their confines. 

Tile floors and stone walls stretched into miles of networking tunnels. Keith crouched close to Ulaz as the disks made sharp turns and sudden stops, all to avoid the shots of interior personnel and sudden intersecting walls. In front of them, Regris called out the directions. Behind, Beji fired at chasing soldiers. In the distance, he heard people shouting, their words indistinct.

The tunnels opened into a warehouse of crates and vials of quintessence. Ulaz angled them directly up, away from the soldiers who swarmed the entrance. Ammunition pelleted the disk’s bottom. It forced them into a wobbling rise. Keith heard Ulaz cursing and it only made his grip on Ulaz tighter.

What made him freeze, though, were the now-clear shouts from their pursuers echoing.  _ Keith! _ Hyladra shouted.  _ Paladin!  _ called out Volux. Keith glanced back, his heart thundering, to meet Thace’s eyes. Thace said nothing as he drove their vehicle after the disks. That hurt Keith’s heart the most, but he took solace that Zarkon hadn’t broken protocol to chase. He didn’t know what he would have done if he’d seen Zarkon. If Zarkon was angry, that might have empowered Keith to flee--but if he was disappointed or sad, Keith didn’t know what he’d do. He needed Zarkon to be a monster. He needed all of the Imperial Galra he’d met to be monsters. Otherwise, how was he going to destroy their god--their false idol--and destroy the Empire?

He looked away from Thace. The frantic calls of those he’d known trailed him, even when the disks pulled further ahead of their car and their voices grew indistinct. None of the Blades commented on what followed him. He didn’t know what he’d have told them if they’d asked.

The halls turned to pure stone--orange as a sunset, the natural dust and sand polished away to a sheen. Keith caught glimpses of himself in the surface--glances of bright gold eyes tinging purple, dark fur, and blurs that took form as a strangely human visage. He didn’t want to think on it. His mind ached to return to simpler times--times when he could look at his hands and not cringe. The hands he’d grown up with were bare, pale or light gold depending on the weather, and slim. The hands he had now were furred, padded with dark purple skin, and tipped by claws meant to rend flesh from bone.

Predator. Hunter.  _ Monster _ . He’d loved people who looked like he did, but he couldn’t find it in himself to love what he looked like. If he killed the Voice, would he be free of the form? She’d changed him into it, after all. But what if it just meant that he was stuck?

You can manipulate quintessence, he thought. Just like every Galra could naturally do so. His strength and relationship to the Voice tied into that. It was why he could kill her, after all. If the Voice didn’t free him in her death throes, he’d do it himself. He’d return to Keith Kogane, human Paladin, and forget Caith and Keirin. Everything that’d happened to him would be erased. The chips would be removed. His form, changed. With the Red Lion’s return, his bond with Hyladra--throbbing like a burst artery--would end. None of those who knew him would want to talk or follow him again, not when he killed the Voice.

Laughter tried to slip free of his lips. It was wild, manic, almost a howl; he refused to let it loose. This was the end. He was going to burn down the past year and dance in the cinders. The pain in his chest meant nothing compared to the torrential storm inside his mind. The tangled web he’d found himself wrapped in would burn away in quintessence’s fire. Even the shouts of those he’d known--turned deafening by the cavernous halls--couldn’t stop the poisonous, vicious urge to kill the Voice.

Let him end it and return to where he belonged. Did it make him ungrateful? Selfish? What had Hyladra or Volux done to make him kill the Voice? Was the Voice’s existence enough to justify the malice of killing her in front of her worshippers? By the end of the day, the Voice’s demise would be heard throughout the universe. Galra would feel her loss; footage might be passed around on Galran news services. Those like Keyka, if their planet still lived, would celebrate, as would the remaining Alteans. In one blow, the Empire would be laid low. 

He’d be a hero to rebels and Voltron. Every Galra he’d met at the Palace would despise him. What would those at the Castle think? Would Allura think the action too rash? Would Shiro be unnerved with Keith’s brutality and appearance? Keith imagined standing in front of them all. Pidge would be leery and clinical, like the doctor she wasn’t; Hunk would be wary but reach out.  _ He killed the Voice _ , Hunk would say.  _ That’s got to count for something. _ Lance would glare and sneer, but maybe he’d understand too. Shiro would take that ever-soft voice and hide the cracks appearing in his loam-dark eyes.

And Coran. Maybe Coran would understand best what Keith had lived through. Coran had known the Galra as friends, after all, and he’d lived through their betrayal for the Voice. He knew her power, and he knew the desperation that blossomed in the gut when cornered. Maybe, Keith thought, in the good ending to all this, he’d get to talk to Coran. What he suspected, though, was that there was no good ending to any of it. 

Good endings were weddings and new homes. Good endings were smiles and parties and soft kisses in moonlit gardens. The ending Keith hoped for--victory over the Empire, the liberation of the universe, even Shiro’s touch as they could finally breathe and live--would come, at best, bittersweet. He’d never be the same. The change was more than green blood and dark fur. It was how he thought, who he found himself tied to, and what he’d done. He’d tortured, murdered, poisoned, assassinated. 

Was that Keith Kogane? He didn’t think so. He could discard Caith and Keirin, but they left a mark on him, like charcoal fingers touching a snow-white shift. The best he could hope for was washing the shift to a light grey--close to what it’d once been, but far from the purity it’d had.

He told himself he wouldn’t torture again. He wouldn’t maim and mutilate and poison the drinks of those who smiled at him. His friendships would be  _ normal _ . No more lies, no more strange magical bonds with those who were supposed to be enemies, no more dream-like meetings with someone who’d picked him apart at the seams and restitched him to something strange. Zarkon would be his enemy again--not someone who decorated him in pearls and silver, or gave him secrets and murmured praise.

_ I can kill him _ , he thought. He could wield the bayard he didn’t have any more and put it through Zarkon’s heart. The panic and fear that thought spurred would leave him when Zarkon was dead. With the other Paladins, Allura, and Coran, he could insulate himself from those feelings. None of them would encourage attachment, and wouldn’t he be too ashamed to entertain memories of moonlit evenings and parties? The others wouldn’t ever know the details of what Zarkon had done, but they didn’t need to. All they needed to be was harsh and unforgiving to the Empire, and he would fall in line.

There was no happy ending to this, but he could get that light grey. Maybe, eventually, he’d come to see it as a happy ending--an ending that fuelled his desire to help people, an ending that showed how resilient he was, even an ending that would let him go find someone or something he loved.

_ Shiro _ . The name tasted like iron and pepper. In a bittersweet ending, he returned to Shiro and pretended everything was all right until it became all right, the sharp edges of his memory dulled by the touch of time. The strange feelings he held for Shiro would never find voice as he tried to piece himself together again, but he could watch Shiro return to Earth and be happy. He might even draw happiness from the gentle voice and touch that Shiro always had for him.

Being okay, feeling even an ounce of happiness… Those were better than the dreamlike bliss that Zarkon had tried to give him. Zarkon’s Gal had been a world of food, dances, and flattery. The reality of it had been Keith’s doing--his insistence on escaping, of asserting who he was, even if only in memory--and that was what fuelled him now. He needed to escape the dream that everything was okay because he  _ wasn’t _ okay, nothing on Gal was right, and the only way to cut himself free of the web tangling around him was to murder the heart of it all: the Voice.

The labyrinth the team navigated threw them from side to side, up and down barricades formed by soldiers, down through gauntlets of ammunition barrages and up from the grasping claws of technicians. Ulaz crouched as he steered them through the waves of destruction. Regris kept close, while Beji worked to snipe down those following on similar disks. When another door appeared--a dozen tunnels of all sizes leading to it--Ulaz didn’t stop until they were right up against it. 

“Regris,” Ulaz called out. 

Regris pressed against the wall, his fingers working at a tablet in front of a panel covered in buttons and wires. “I’m going to need time,” Regris said. “With the viruses gone, I don’t have a backdoor anymore.” His clawed fingers hovered over the screen, pecking at keys and symbols like birds with seeds. “Beji, can you hold them off--”

Beji’s breathing rattled, even in the din of her shooting and the oncoming Imperial soldiers. Keith jerked around to see green blood flowing from her side. When she moved, he caught glimpses of white bone--ribs, he thought. Unless she got medical attention within minutes, she’d die. It hadn’t stopped her: she fired and fired, her steady rhythm only thrown off when she had to shift to a new angle.

Keith felt the blood drain from his face. Blood coated her disk. Ulaz shifted on their shared disk, turning to see the same scene Keith did. His sharp intake of breath revealed he’d come to the same conclusion.

“Beji--”

She shook her head. “Keep working,” she wheezed. “I can--I can do this.” Her next shot fell far from her target. Ulaz reached over to take over, but Regris shook his head.

“I need someone to help with the second firewall.” Regris jabbed a tablet at Ulaz. “Paladin, you can help Beji.” His voice softened. “You did well, sister Blade.”

Beji grunted in answer, the sound wet. Were her lungs punctured? Keith didn’t want to know, even when he leapt from Ulaz’s disk to Beji’s. His shoes slid on the blood, but he managed to steady himself with a hand on Beji’s shoulder. His hand came away with blood. Worse, he felt her wheezes.

“I’ll do it,” he told her softly. “You’re going to drop the gun soon. Your arms are shaking. You’ve done all you can. I promise you that it’ll be worth it. The Voice  _ will _ die.”

Beji’s masked face turned to look at him. “... Tell my family I’m sorry.” She gasped through the pain and shortening breaths. “But not for this. Never for this.” She handed him the gun before she fell to her knees. 

He wished he could heal her, like the Druids had him. He didn’t know how to do that, though. Basic manipulations were beyond him. All he could do was, strangely, one of the most powerful things a Druid could do: commune with the Voice. In another life, he thought, in another timeline, he saved Beji. Now, all he could do was raise the rifle and begin to fire. Beji’s breathing grew quiet, quieter, and then he couldn’t hear it any longer. He fired in quick movements, more focused on pinning the soldiers down than killing.

When Beji went limp, she almost slid off the disk. Only a quick shift of his foot kept her from falling. He didn’t know what purpose he’d done it for: carrying her body out after the Voice’s death would be impossible, and her extra weight even now sent his shots off-course. 

Suppression was what mattered, though. Deny them space to move, pin them down, take quick shots that didn’t need to land perfectly, only  _ close _ . Regris and Ulaz worked behind him, their curt words strained. All the while, Beji’s corpse inched toward falling from the disk.

The door rumbled. Tall as the Black Lion and wide enough to fit a large ship through, its facade had been crafted from the same amethyst-tinted metal as the blade Keith had been given. The reminder cut deeper than anything else. Why did he have that knife? What material was it that attracted the Empire, the Blades, and his own parents to give him it?

“We’ll have ten ticks,” Ulaz said. “Keith, on to my disk. No more shots or you’ll fall.” Keith grit his teeth. Ulaz was right, but the moment he turned his back, they’d have much less than ten ticks before people surged from their hiding spots.

“Give me a countdown to opening,” Keith replied.

He felt Ulaz’s frown at his back. “... Ten. Nine. Eight--”

Keith fired off faster than ever. The gun heated in his hands, straining to keep up. If he killed at least one, the fear of death might keep the soldiers down for even a tick longer. He’d never used a rifle like this before, though. His hands were practiced with swords and knives. The Garrison had given basic instruction in firearms, enough that Keith didn’t jam the gun, but he didn’t have Lance’s precision or the agility of other students.

He clipped a peeking soldier in the ear. Another shot sent a fellow sniper’s disk tumbling. The best he managed was a few shots in arms and bodies as soldiers fled the disk’s falling wreckage. It was just in time for Ulaz’s ragged-breathed  _ two _ . Keith turned and leapt for Ulaz’s disk. Beji’s body fell free, falling a hundred feet to the ground. Bones snapped, though he was glad she’d never feel them. 

Ulaz and Regris shot along the door’s length at one. The gears and pulleys inside rumbled to life as the door edged open inch by inch. Keith clutched Ulaz, keeping his body low as Imperial soldiers staggered to their feet and took shots. Regris yelped behind them; Keith glanced over his shoulder to see green blood splattered on the purple wall. 

“Keep going!” Regris shouted. Ulaz took the advice: with a final hairpin turn, they ploughed through the slim opening. There were centimeters to spare as Ulaz angled them between the heavy walls. Keith glanced behind again, worry in his chest, but Regris was there. With a twist of his feet, Regris turned and tossed something between the now-closing doors.

Shots hailed down on them, but their disks whirled to the sides, taking shelter in the heavy door’s shadow. When the two sides reached the middle, something exploded between their kiss. Inside the heavy walls, electronics fizzed and crackled. Life whooshed from the doors. In the sudden silence, Keith noticed the shining gold light behind them. He turned by fractions, wary and frightened. 

The world he saw was like nothing he’d imagined. The cavernous room had been built from the rocks, a hollowing out that left the red and oranges shining. Sand coated the ground, with furrows of upraised stone acting as steps. The straight path led to a pool of sparkling water. From another level poured a waterfall of water the shade of diluted blood. It reminded Keith of Mahadra Spring water, and he wondered, then, if the similarities were at all a coincidence. He’d never known where the spring was, after all.

The second level was lush with crimson plants and blossoms of blue, purple, and pink. The forest reached the very top of the ceiling--hundreds of feet of jungle, he thought, yet the most spellbinding thing was neither a plant nor alive. On the second level of the pools, the Voice radiated.

Its blinding red light illuminated every bit of the room. A song--the  _ Chorus _ \--reverberated, clear and thundering. The Voice sang in a hundred voices, all them of sirens. Keith watched, transfixed, as the light inside her shifted and rolled like waves in a storm. He leaned toward her, drawn like any sailor. Ulaz’s grip on Keith tightened. Close by, Keith heard Regris muttering a prayer, though to who, Keith didn’t know. All the Galra had left was the Voice.

A bang against the amethyst door startled Keith back to wakefulness. The metal held firm, but Keith didn’t doubt it’d give eventually. Ulaz tugged at Keith, who realized how far off the disk he’d leaned. His stomach turned as he pulled back.

“How are we going to do this?” Keith asked. “Do I just… go up and talk to her?”

Ulaz gave a sharp nod. “Distract her. Preferably, direct her power away from this location.” Ulaz eyed the Voice like she was a rearing spider. “We’ll do the rest, but you must be quick.” Another bang at the door punctuated the statement. When Ulaz angled them down, toward the pools, Keith focused on evening his breathing. 

He needed to get in touch with the quintessence inside him. It was chaotic, though--Hyladra worked to grapple his attention to her, while the Red Lion howled. Was it her fear at him being so close to the Voice, or was the Blade working to liberate her? Worse, through the Red Lion, he heard the thoughts of the other Paladins. They were panicked too. The Empire’s command networks had launched into a frenzy, all reporting rebel movements and attacks. Everything was going to shit, and they knew Keith was in the middle of it all. 

Ulaz landed them on the second platform, around the mouth of the waterfall. Droplets splashed up, decorating Keith’s suit in gleaming water. The Voice’s light darkened the water’s natural pink to a bloody red. “Hello,” Keith said from a rock. The Voice’s song didn’t quiet, but a new note took form. Clearer than the rest, it trilled through the room, hiding the voices of Regris and Ulaz, and almost disguising the bombs at the door.

They had minutes at most. Keith breathed deep and gathered his quintessence. He didn’t know the exact directions for it, nor had he trained. Quintessence was the soul, the life of a person, so he took his thoughts and ideas and consciousness and imagined sending out streams of himself along a breeze’s current toward the Voice. 

He braced himself for nothing to happen. The universe hated him enough to leave him hanging all the time, so why would this be different? Yet the Voice rumbled inside her song, and her light grew brighter. Wisps fell from her body--a body of a diamond, of sweeping streaks of colour that made him think of satin and silk. The wisps gathered like drifts of snow as a lone tendril--thick as a car, bright as the sun--reached out to him. It never touched him, but he felt warmth against his skin.

_ Mine _ , she said.

His chest tightened.  _ Yours _ , he thought back. Her song rose, higher and higher pitched in her joy. Regris and Ulaz staggered back, away from them.  _ Talk to me. I want to hear your voice. Would you give me that? _

The Chorus grew in his ears, a symphony of wonder.  It set his teeth on edge and rang like a clarion bell, echoing in booms that rattled his eardrums. Agony stabbed into his temples, but he didn’t look away from the Voice. Her song rose and fell. It wasn’t musical like his still-Earth mind expected. It was a series of booms, bangs, and howls. Atonal, sharp, lacking grace: it was the fall of trash from a junkyard pile. The Voice was  _ loud _ , never elegant.

He barely noticed another bang from the door behind them. If not for the direction it echoed in, he might have missed it completely. “Keith!” Ulaz called out. All Keith gave in return was a sharp nod. He needed to hurry this up. While he didn’t know what the Blades planned to do when the Voice was disarmed and distracted, it would hopefully finish the job on the Voice.

_ Come to me _ , he asked.  _ Show me what you see. What does quintessence taste like? How does the Chorus sound to you? Where do you come from? _

Another bang, followed by ripped metal. The Voice startled, even as she wrapped her tendrils around him. The heat was suffocating, while the air tasted of ozone and burning metal. He didn’t struggle. All he did was repeat his questions and pray that her attention came back to him. People were shouting and barking orders. There were bangs and cracks of guns. Ulaz and Regris staggered past him. Green blood didn’t flow from either, but they were forced down to their stomachs to hide from the whizz of quintessence bullets. Warmth splashed behind him. He knew the Voice was defending him when she screamed, the sound like a falling bell.

“Keith!” Volux shouted. “Get away from Her!”

On impulse, Keith jerked around in the Voice’s grip. She let him turn--and she let him see Volux sprinting toward him from the waterfall’s lip. Their mask had fallen away, revealing only desperation--desperation that turned to agony when the Voice did not greet them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for being so patient, and I hope you've had a wonderful holiday if you celebrate! Happy New Year as well. <3 The next update will be January 12th!


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please refer to this post for trigger warnings about this chapter: http://the-wenzel.tumblr.com/private/169634628661/tumblr_p2gwdemEVY1vy0s6a

Keith recoiled. His feet stumbled over the rocks; only the Voice’s presence wrapped around him kept him from falling. Her help worsened the agonized lines of Volux’s face. Their hands were in fists, their jaw clenched, a ferocious anger filled their eyes. Keith tried to breathe through the stench of betrayal that radiated from Volux. 

_ You came here _ , Volux’s body said,  _ and we trusted you. Now you’re trying to kill our goddess and protector.  _ That the unspoken words hadn’t yet come with rays of quintessence was a miracle. But what would that do to the Voice, after all? She fed on it. 

“Get away from her,” Volux hissed.

Keith stiffened. “She wants me here.”

“Because She doesn’t understand what you’re trying to do!” Volux stopped mere feet away--just outside the swirling storm of quintessence. “If She knew, She’d tear you to  _ pieces _ .”

“She doesn’t fear death like we do.” Excuses, he thought. Barren, empty excuses. She’d run from him if she knew what he planned. Her thoughts were inhuman, but what mortal thing didn’t fear death? “You can’t stop me, Volux. I need to do this--”

“Why?” Volux demanded, their voice cracking. “Why can’t you leave well enough alone? This  will do nothing good, Paladin. Do you know what will happen if She dies?”

The accelerating entropy of the universe would stop. No more planets, people, and spirits being fed to her in hopes that’d prevent the Outsiders from devouring the world. He would throw open the gates so that what remained inside the gilded bubble could fight off the Outsiders. Could it end with everyone dying?

He couldn’t lie to himself. It absolutely could. He was trading the universe’s complacency for terror and ravening abominations. A chance instead of a prolonged death. The unknown, Keith thought, must terrify the Empire beyond anything else. They’d spent so long methodically gathering quintessence, destroying the universe, and feeding it all to the Voice--the Voice who’d become the centre of so many rituals and beliefs. 

“I do know,” Keith said.  _ I don’t care _ went unsaid.

Volux breathed a shuddering breath. “We’ve spent so long with the Voice,” they said. “Don’t you think we’d have tried to figure out how to kill Her? If it was possible, Keith, we would have figured it out in ten thousand years and  _ done it _ . We didn’t want to do this to the universe--to ourselves! You’re letting your heart guide you in this when it should be your brain!”

Keith shook his head. Exhaustion filled him. Was it just this, or was the Voice latently feeding on him? Who knew with the creature? All he knew was that she purred against him, satisfied and warm like a well-fed cat. 

“I’ve chosen.” He stepped back, deeper into the spring water. Volux blurred as the Voice’s light intensified over his vision. “This is what has to be done. All you were doing was  _ postponing _ the reckoning. Why? So that when there was nothing left for the Voice to eat, you could die with a whimper?”

“And you think someone like Gryva or Hyladra would rather die in glory than go about their lives in normalcy?”

Keith clenched his teeth. “There was nothing  _ normal _ about this. Gal enjoyed peace. Nowhere else did--”

“You’ve seen the Balmera and little else!” Volux jabbed a finger at Keith. “You don’t know what the Empire looks like! You don’t know how many races enjoy peace and riches!”

Keith stared at Volux. They shuddered in front of him, full to the brim with a paralyzing hatred and frustration. Keith could almost admire it. Volux had never struck him as someone in control of themselves, but the degree of anger in them put Keith on edge. Volux wouldn’t let Keith walk away. The  _ moment _ he was outside of the Voice’s protection, Volux would come at him.

“I know enough,” Keith replied, “to see the fear in any other race who came to Gal-- _ including _ my own terror. Your empire is sick, Volux. Don’t pretend elsewise.”

“What do you know?” Volux’s voice was almost a whisper, only amplified by the cavernous room they were in. “Do you even know who the woman you saw  _ is _ ?”

Keith froze. He didn’t want to know. “I’ve chosen the salt of duty--”

“Those are  _ Galran _ words,” Volux purred. There was a strange sheen to their gold eyes. “Our words. The comfort of blood, the salt of duty, the Emperor, an obsession with glory and battle… That’s Galran, Keith.  _ Caith _ . Do you know who the woman is? Do you know who  _ I _ am? Or who you even are? You’ve pouted throughout your time here, about your misfortunes and the unfairness of the world… You’re so full of pity for yourself, Caith. You’d cry a thousand tears for yourself, but what of those around you? Hyladra offered her quintessence to you, and you attacked her.”

“Because I had to--”

“You could have  _ accepted _ the wisdom of others. But you thought you knew best.” Volux prowled closer, but never into the Voice’s lights. “You still don’t know anything. Don’t you want to know?”

_ Who was Juniper? _ That haunted him. He knew she was the answer to a question he refused to ask. It terrified him in the way a rabbit feared the eagle’s shadow. Juniper looked like him. Her image attracted the Voice: he suspected,  _ knew _ , that the Voice had come to him because he was so similar to her. But there was one problem with Volux’s offer.

“I don’t want to know,” Keith said in full honesty. 

Volux jerked back. “Then what of me?” they demanded, “or who  _ you _ are?”

“I don’t want to know,” he repeated. Fear uncoiled in his belly. The Voice whispered against him, uneasy. “You have something to  _ gain _ by offering this. You think I’ll turn my back on the rebels or--or even just fall apart at knowing. So I don’t want to know.”

Volux stared, their expression disbelieving. “You--” They cut off, shaking their head. “You  _ idiot _ . You can’t even accept this without arguing.” Lacking anything to say, Keith shrugged. “Then… then you don’t give me a choice.”

“What--”

Pure quintessence blasted in a beam, aimed to his middle. Only the Voice’s barrier saved him. Even still, force slammed against his chest. He stumbled back, further into the Voice’s embrace. The quintessence was heat--putrid, overwhelming,  _ poisonous _ . 

Keith wheezed, hunching over. Ahead, more people shouted. Guns fired. He forced his eyes open to see others--Hyladra, Thace, even Kymin--struggling with Regris and Ulaz. Thace whirled around, a sword aimed at Ulaz’s neck. Ulaz staggered back, raising his rifle. 

Another beam of quintessence pounded against the Voice’s grip. She screamed, enraged; a tendril lashed out, striking at Volux, but Volux conjured a solid wall of power. It crumbled under her touch, yet it bought Volux time to scuttle away.

Regris yowled as a sword dug into his already-bleeding tail. Hyladra ground the edge down, as though to cut it off. “Leave him alone!” Keith shouted. She looked up, her expression a mix of mania and tears. But her distraction bought Regris time: he whacked the blade from his tail and hobbled away, a trail of green behind him. 

Thace slashed and tore at Ulaz, who retreated further and further back, toward the spring water. Keith spotted a gun a few feet away from him, but fear paralyzed him. Could he really shoot Thace? Yet he couldn’t let Ulaz die either. Ulaz had trusted him so much already, and was the only one who knew how to truly destroy the Voice.

Keith lunged forward, through the Voice’s lights, and grabbed the gun. He hefted it up and tried to find the strength to breathe. This was it--this is what it all came down to. He aimed it at Thace’s feet, praying; Kymin called out from where he steadied Volux, but it was too late.

The rifle bucked in his grip. A splattering of quintessence popped out, spitting around Thace’s feet like a firecracker. Keith suspected it was the implied threat that forced Thace back. Ulaz didn’t look to see what’d happened: he bolted to where Regris nursed his half-sawn off tail. 

Keith reached for the Voice and breathed.  _ Protect them too. They’re friends. _ The Voice sang sadly. She didn’t understand. So he spoke in her language-- _ they are mine _ \--and her light reached out to encompass Regris and Ulaz. Regris yelped as the quintessence began to knit together his tail again. Ulaz shuddered, creeping closer to Keith along with Regris. 

On the other side of the barrier, the others watched. “You can’t do this,” Volux pleaded. “She’s all we have! You don’t know what’s on the other side!”

Thace hushed him. “You,” and he pointed at Ulaz. “You fight like someone I knew. A soldier of the Empire. And now you’re going to murder the Voice?”

Ulaz didn’t speak, as though Thace might recognize his voice. Which, if Thace was right, he  _ would _ . Regris spoke in his stead. “After she’s murdered us. So many of us are dead because of you cowards. If you want sympathy or tears, maybe you should have cared about the rest of us.”

Hyladra breathed in sharply. “Commander--”

“Not now,” Thace snapped. “Keith, you can’t do this. Do you think they’ll help you? They’re rebels.  _ Murderers. _ Little better than the Clarion. Do you know what they did to the navy as we came?” Keith refused to flinch, but it was a near thing. Thousands were dead, and he’d let it happen. But it’d been  _ necessary _ . “You know I wouldn’t lie to you. This group is poison in the heart of the Empire. They will kill you when this is over--what need would they have of another Druid? Especially one so close to the Emperor?”

He couldn’t even call Thace a liar. He didn’t know the Blades well enough to say they wouldn’t. But there was a truth that he still had. “They want to stop Zarkon. That’s… that’s good enough for me.” 

“I helped you,” Thace said. Keith opened his mouth to snarl that Thace had  _ left _ him, but Thace’s steady gaze pinned him. “When the barriers at Central Command rose, I freed you.”

“What?”

Thace smiled, lopsided and tired. “I deactivated them. It was--I had doubts, Keith, just like you do now. But I learned better. The Empire is necessary, and so the Emperor is necessary. If this world ends, let it be after a glorious age. Not this.”

They knew. Some of them, at least--Hyladra looked confused, and Kymin as well, but Thace’s expression was the resigned calm of knowing what the Voice’s purpose was. Both Thace and Volux had chosen to side with the Empire. Why had Keith done otherwise, they asked. What was defective with him?

The answers were easy. Education. Experience. Insight. Earth had endured rulers like Zarkon before--enlightened kings and queens and emperors and empresses, all of them monsters of some stripe or another, adored by fellow bluebloods and exalted by historians for their vision and great works. What had come from them? The best had mixed legacies. Reforms to serfdom, a larger role for the intelligentsia, even health programs.

But at their feet, all of them had stood on bones. The bones of peasants, of soldiers, of nobles who’d questioned their rule. An enlightened despot was still a despot. And Zarkon was most certainly a despot.

Keith couldn’t find it in himself to stand by and let that mountain of bones grow. He reached for the Voice and whispered to her. The airy barrier thickened, steeling itself for an oncoming onslaught.  _ I want to talk to you _ , he told her again and again.  _ I want to show you Juniper. _

The Voice’s heart rose at the woman’s image. She enveloped him in the lights, her song strengthening. Volux shouted and pounded at the barrier, but they were nothing in the Voice’s eyes. Nothing compared to sweet Juniper, whoever she’d once been.

In his mind’s eye, Keith imagined Juniper beside him. She’d be warm and joyful, full of laughter and possessed of a bright mind. The Voice would delight her, because why else would the Voice love her so much unless the sentiment was returned? 

The Voice hummed against his skin. Feet away, others pounded at the light. There was nothing solid to connect with, but their flesh and fur never made it past the light. He turned his eyes from their frantic faces and closed his mind to their panicked shouts, and looked deeper into the Voice. Ulaz and Regris huddled by his feet; Ulaz cradled a bag, his hands tangled in its insides.

The Voice pulled him away. She loved the image of Juniper too dearly to be parted for long.  _ Show me! _ she insisted.  _ Show me! Show me! Show me! _

He conjured a vision of Juniper and the Voice sighed like a lover. Hyladra tried to grasp at him through the bond, her nails sharp. The Voice shoved her away.  _ Mine! _

“Keith,” someone was saying. “Keith! Please.”

He didn’t want to hear it. The Voice’s colours were mesmerizing, and he still had work to do. “You’re going to kill them,” Thace said. “Volux is going to--please, Keith,  _ stop _ .” The lights around him darkened as he thought of Juniper surrounded by stars, far, far, away from the spring. 

_ Go after her _ , he whispered to the Voice.

_ Yes! _ she replied. 

“They’re my child,” Thace said, voice cracking. “Keith… that was what I was hiding from you. If you stop now, the Emperor can find it in himself to forgive you. Things can be right again. Don’t hurt them. Don’t hurt the Voice--”

The quintessence gave the Voice her power. It wasn’t simply inside her--it was in the waters, the walls, even the stone. He needed her to pull herself away from the spring. To where, though? Where could he send her that would give Ulaz time to do whatever he needed to do?

“Follow me home,” he said. People startled around him. The Voice leaned in, breathless despite her form. He squeezed his eyes closed, ignoring Thace’s shouts. The world of light and colour darkened, solidifying to blackness. He drew from his heart and mind scenes that he knew better than the Palace, or the Castle, or even the Garrison. 

Skyscrapers sprouted from the ground. Windows bloomed in their stony concrete sides. Streets stretched for miles, littered with packed cars, pedestrians, and signs. It was the shitty part of town, the part of town you didn’t walk through at night, but it was Keith’s part of town. It was Toronto’s heart, as far as he was concerned. The Voice’s lights filled the streets, but no one noticed, too absorbed in work or planning dinner. The orphanage was further down the street. If he wanted to, he could have walked to the neighbourhood pool, or the mall.

The Voice chimed behind him.  _ Home? _

_ Home _ , he echoed. That pleased her more. He couldn’t offer her minds to peruse other than his own, but his own contented her. Tendrils investigated every crack and seam. She saw the matron of his orphanage and marvelled at how strange she looked. Shiro appeared in a dissonant visit to Toronto, and she murmured inarticulate nothings as she combed over his image.

Keith breathed deep and released the affection he’d always held so close to his chest. The Voice reared, as though alarmed, but then she dove into the mass of unknown and unlabelled emotions. Keith refused to watch.

The Voice devoured things. It was what she did. But for Keith, she didn’t even nibble or nip. She marvelled and fell into the flow of it all. Like driftwood, she went from memory to memory, bumping against sprigs of embarrassment and twigs of shame. Those emotions were tasted but left alone.

She was gone from the spring. Whatever Ulaz did, she wouldn’t notice it. But he refused to think too much on the what ifs and possibilities. She needed him and Juniper. So long as he danced and paraded Toronto for her, showing her everything he was and had been, she wouldn’t look. He chanted greetings and platitude in his mind, and her purr rattled his bones.

She asked for Juniper, and Juniper whirled through the streets, joyful and oblivious. Who was Juniper? It didn’t matter. Juniper was useful, a tool for what he needed. But the Voice’s love for Juniper wasn’t so easily dismissed. The Voice trailed after the ghost, her voice reverberating in the streets.

_ Come back! _ the Voice begged.  _ Come back to me, you were mine, you  _ **_are_ ** _ mine-- _

What was a ghost to Keith was so very real for the Voice. She didn’t know the difference between the dead and gone and the alive, not without her Chorus, Keith suspected. The Voice’s pleas turned to wails as Juniper ignored her. Panic filled him. He called to the Voice, and she paused in her pursuit. The full force of her mind stared him in the face.

_ Who is she? _ he asked. His memories and imagination weren’t enough. But maybe hers would be.

The Voice wavered. Juniper’s ghost faded.  _ You _ , she said. Keith’s stomach twisted, even in the dreamland. 

_ Show me. _

The dreamland vanished. Keith ceded control. In its place, a temple took form. Candles surrounded the room’s dark edges, while satin red pillows decorated the floors. Druids, masked and robed, knelt throughout the room. Some rocked in their prayers. Others had fallen prone. The only sign of life from them were twitches and spasms. The Voice’s form was gone, but her presence coiled in his mind, waiting for a reaction. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to react  _ to _ until he saw the woman in the middle of the room.

Juniper.

She kneeled among the crowd of Druids, whispering to herself as she rocked. Her mask had fallen to the side, or perhaps it was sign of how well-regarded the Voice saw her as. Maybe, to the Voice, she’d never worn a mask.

Keith took a hesitant step. His feet made no sound among the whispers. It let him hurry over to Juniper and look her in the face. Her eyes were brilliant gold yet vacant. He reached up but hesitated. What was so important about this vision? The Voice had to have chosen it for a reason. “What should I be seeing?” he asked.

Juniper gasped and went rigid. Her head snapped back. He heard tendons crack. “Yara!” one of the praying Druids cried out. “Yara--”

“No,” Juniper said, her voice an even, light baritone. Her dark fur bristled. “Be calm.” The other Druids were stirred from their prayers, all watching Juniper-- _ Yara _ . Yara whispered and shushed, her words unintelligible, but the Voice’s power grew in his mind, heartened by what she said if only in memory.

Keith watched the fluctuations of Yara’s face. She looked so much like him, and it hurt to think that. Who was she to him? He’d resorted to hopes that he was a reincarnation. If his soul was Galran, fine; it could be contained by his human heritage and upbringing. But if he was Galran, what did it mean to have the enemy’s blood in his veins?

How tied did that make him to the Empire?

Yara sighed, light and airy. Her shoulders slumped, releasing the tension that’d been building inside her. “I’m here,” she promised to an unseen force. “Sing to me?” The room filled with the Voice’s chimes. Yara smiled, her teeth a brilliant white, and she laughed, the sound as clear as the Voice’s notes.

Keith watched, silent. Yara spoke to the Voice in gentle tones, curious as a cat yet never demanding. The respect she had for the Voice was… alarming. Had they not initiated her into the mysteries of the Voice? Didn’t she know what the Voice did?

It begged the question of how much any Druid knew. They could go through the motions of conducting quintessence, but did they know they were killing their flocks? Did they even know that their powers came not from the Voice, but from an innate ability? Volux had been protective of the Voice, but then Volux had their own agenda.

Thace had said Volux was his child. In the quiet of the Voice’s memories, the words sunk into his skin like glass. Volux hadn’t released their hold on their old life. Keith knew Druids were taken as children--didn’t he remember, in Wrin’s memories, a story about Cecu Thace’s son drowning? If Volux hadn’t determined their gender yet, it would be a good cover story. Nobody would go looking for Volux, whatever their original name had been. Nobody would ask about the child. Asking, after all, would mean scraping open scabbed wounds.

It would explain why Volux and Thace had wanted so badly to hide their interactions yet knew each other so well. A father and child, divorced by the realities of their situations, but clinging to one another despite it. Who knew how long Volux had been gone from Thace? It’d been long enough for Volux to feel no need to hold their tongue or spare Thace venom for poor decisions.

Yara faded like an aging page. The Voice turned to him, cradling him, and he knew that Yara was long dead, leaving him the closest thing the Voice had to her. “What happened?” he asked softly. “Where did she go?”

The world flickered. Soldiers’ boots crashed in harmony, like an orchestra’s rolling drums. The world around him was alien--not the deserts of Gal, or the verdant greens of rural Ontario, but a world of shattered metal and barren rock. Smoke rose above monstrosities crafted from steel. They’d been towers once, but now were rubble. He stood between marching columns, his gaze pinned to a rising violet sun, larger than the most full moons of Earth.

The soldiers’ uniforms were harsh metal carapaces. Helmets obscured their golden eyes. What marked them as Galra, though, were their legs and the scattered tails. The Empire’s crest donned not a single chest; instead, the uniforms were a mottled, if soft, thistle. Their guns pressed against their breastplates, the tips angled up toward an empty, smoky sky. Clouds obscured the sun’s sharp lines, turning it to a quivering, shivering orb.

A warm breeze sliced through him. His ghostly image was no barrier to the marching Druids--all masked, all dressed in dark robes. Their leader was short, but the quintessence crackling in her cupped hands declared her power. The Druids behind her chanted and sang in tongues older than any human civilization. 

He knew the leader was Yara. The vision was important to Yara’s story, at least to the Voice, and he knew what her form looked like from the temple. He walked after her. Bolts of sizzling quintessence lashed out at shadowy figures in the surrounding rubble. The screams rattled the metal sheets. The Druids’ singing drowned out the thunder.

The world filled with the scent of burning flesh. Still, he followed. When the path slimmed, the lines turned to single file; when it widened, the soldiers broke off to either side while the Druids filled the plaza’s centre. 

Nobody cheered their arrival.

Yara kneeled in the middle. He went to her side and listened to her chants. The words were nonsense--words were stacked upon words, fragments of thoughts that’d never be finished. She whispered of blue skies, so far gone in this place, and asked again and again of the dark rivers in her mind.  _ Do you wait in them, Voice? Shall I wade in and drown? _

The soldiers waited. The Druids ringed around Yara, their own hands full of quintessence that overflowed, spilling to the ground to swirl in little eddies. The gold spread, filling the crevices of rock and trickling down toward Yara. The sigil the quintessence painted was crafted from the language of nature. It meant nothing. They were random scribbles formed by millions of years of planetary development, water, and the whims of those who’d once thrived in the city.

Still, his brain said he saw the face of a lion.

Yara’s throat rumbled and keened, and from her lips came a high, lone note of pain. It echoed like a scream. Something in the air replied--just as high, just as sharp, just as loud. The assembled soldiers did nothing as the Druids focused their powers into the lion’s image. The quintessence fizzled and popped like heated oil.

Smoke the colour of saffron rose. The ground shuddered beneath his feet. The smoke rose higher and higher, shimmering and pungent, smelling like flowers but tasting like ash; there were shrieks and caws in the distance, like startled birds taking wing. But the figures that rose miles away had bat-like wings and strangely formed bodies. The smoke, blown by gentle winds, obscured their details. It didn’t hide the creatures falling back to the earth.

The smoke never cleared. Yara rose as the quintessence turned from a waterfall to a dribble. “We’re done,” she said. Soldiers launched into action, breaking apart into units and fanning out down each street. The Druids hurried after their units, forgetting the drying sigil they’d painted.

A trio of soldiers came to Yara. They saluted, their  _ vrepit sa _ s quiet. Their leader stepped forward, and there was something familiar to that gait. When the leader spoke, it clicked. “Druid Yara,” Thace said, “we’re to escort you to the planet core.”

Was Yara Volux’s mother? But then he didn’t remember Wrin mentioning an aunt Yara. It’d been months, though, and Keith had been given so much information. He knew the aunt had still been around--she and Thace were separated, pulled apart by Volux’s fate.

And Druids weren’t allowed to have families. They weren’t allowed to be  _ people _ . They were figures, almost living avatars of the Voice. Why was Thace important, then? The answer had a bad ending. It wasn’t an ending he wanted to see.

He’d always wondered why Thace had been so involved with him. Thace just saw Yara in him--Yara who might have been a past lover, or simply a valued friend--and that was it. There was nothing more to see, and he should tell the Voice that he was done, and they could go back to Toronto’s streets--

The saffron smoke swallowed the world. What returned was a room of silks and glass. Steaming food filled a table, picked over by claws. Yara, small and dark-furred, curled up on a divan. Nearby, Thace fussed with drinks.

“It will only be a deca-phoeb,” Yara said. “You’ll get to live by the ocean--and I get to swelter in a jungle! If my fur moulds, I’ll be so cross.”

“They should have proper ventilation at the base, Yaya.” Thace slipped several red leaves into the drink, like it was a Galran julep. “High Priestess Haggar wouldn’t send you anywhere unpleasant.”

“She’d be flattered you think so well of her,” Yara said, eyeing the glass with eagerness. “But she thinks I should be toughened like leather. The Voice has been kind to me, and Haggar suspects… indiscretions.” Thace stiffened. “Not like that! We haven’t been obvious. She just knows that when the rain comes, I’m the first many give their umbrellas to.”

Thace finished the milky drinks and brought them to the divan. He leaned down and pressed a kiss against the top of Yara’s head. Her hair looked black as ink and shaggy, almost like Keith’s. Yara squirmed under Thace’s kiss, her hand grappling for the glass. He gave it to her and slipped into the little bit of the couch Yara hadn’t taken.

“You deserve those umbrellas,” Thace told her. Yara’s lips twitched, which she swiftly hid behind a sip of the glass. “Not just for the Voice, but your elegance. Who would allow rain to fall on such beauty?”

“I don’t know,” she mused. “I quite like the rain. Maybe I’d enjoy turning to boot leather. No soft beds or precedence. Just myself, my unit, and the Voice. A militaristic asceticism for the soul!”

Thace laughed. It sounded far more relaxed and airy than anything Keith had ever heard from him. He was decades younger, closer to birth than the end he was encroaching on now, and his eyes were a gleaming gold. “When did you fall in love with folkish slogans?”

“Since I met you.” Her eyes mirrored Thace’s gleam. “My favourite Tuvani!” She lifted her glass to him and took a long drink. “I’m so far from the Druids or the Shayim when I’m with you. I feel as though I should see the world from your eyes, if only so I can best understand what I feel.”

“And what do you feel?”

Yara pursed her lips before a smile blossomed over her too-familiar face. “Love, Commander. Simple love--the love a peasant man has for his wife, or the farmer’s wife has for her sand-worn husband. It is not the love of which stories exalt, but the love that lasts as long as the desert does.”

“For all the simplicity of your love,” Thace said, “your words are that of a poet’s.”

“Too much reading!” Yara leaned back. Half her drink was gone, and already she seemed tipsy. “Of all tongues. So many tongues, I doubt the Exchequer could count them all. But know that, even when you haven’t given me an  _ yanen _ , I would still sing your praises.”

Thace laughed again, and Keith’s heart clenched. This time, Thace kissed her on the cheek. “So long as you do it in the privacy of our rooms, Yaya.”

The vision faded. The stone walls were replaced by sheet metal, while the floor became dirt. The smell of cooked meat and the little clinks of ice in a glass were gone. He stood over a hunched Yara. Her hands hesitated above a collapsed soldier. She whispered a chant, but her voice shook.

Outside of the hideout, mortars soared, crashing into rubble. She had got the proletarian future she’d hoped for, but it wasn’t glamourous or enlightening. Tears speckled her fur like gems. Muck tangled her leg fur into mouldy clumps. “I’m sorry,” she told the dying soldier. “I’m so sorry. I can’t heal it. I don’t have enough quintessence.”

The man beneath her moaned in agony. Tears sprung anew in her eyes. Her mask had been lost in the fray, and Keith doubted she’d ever find it. As his own eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw brilliant green blood splattered around where the man had once had a leg. Whatever had taken it off, it’d taken it in ragged chunks, like the sawing jaws of a shark. 

“Please,” the soldier begged, half out of his mind from the pain.

Yara looked up, beyond the sheet metal flap that acted as a ceiling. “Where are you?” she whispered. No one replied, not even the Voice, not even the Voice that’d taken Keith to see this. “Please, let me help him!” Nothing came. There was no comforting silence for her or Keith. “You always helped before…” Her hands shook. “What have I done wrong?”

The Voice didn’t spare him--or Yara--the man’s moans and final death rattle. Yara cried, then. Powerless, abandoned by her god, and beside a cooling corpse. Keith ached to comfort her--even just a simple word of kindness--but when he opened his mouth to speak, not even air came out. It was all a dream. For Yara, a nightmare. When the bombs stopped and the blood faded, Yara’s tears follow him like a miasma infesting his lungs.

“It’s not possible,” Yara was saying. The dimly lit room had muddy floors and rusted doors. “You’re--this needs to end.”

Another person breathed deep, like a resigned sigh. “Miss, I don’t know your name or identification number. We can do abortions, but I’ll need your information. I understand you don’t want to be on record--”

“I’ll deal with it.” Yara’s nails clicked against the floor. In shadows at the end of the hall, he saw her figure putting on her shoes. Light framed her, turning the room into a series of black and gold. “Thank you for…  _ verifying _ the problem.”

The door to the examination swung closed. In the sudden darkness, the world vanished. But on the horizon, a red sun rose. Sand covered the ground. It wasn’t Gal--the sand lacked the purple tint--but instead, it was all orange and yellow. A small round ship perched on a steep hill. Panels were open. Boxes of tools were scattered around in a ring.

A woman sang. The lyrics weren’t the warbling and shaking notes of religious rites. Instead, they were lilting, jumping melodies with whistling words, like a dock-song or rowdy bar tune. The language wasn’t Old Galran, but light Modern Galran. By the ship’s back panel, Yara hunched below it, tools in hand. 

Keith climbed the hill. The sand burned through his shoes, hot as coals, yet Yara didn’t seem bothered in the least. She wore a soldier’s boots in a civilian’s uniform. Her belly, swollen to thrice its usual size, bulged out, resting on nothing but air. Her hand fluttered to it when she shifted, steadying the belly from swinging. 

Was she leaving the Empire to get a secret abortion? Or-- His mind refused the other thought. It wasn’t that. It couldn’t be that, not for the sake of his own mind. He stopped when he reached her side and watched her now-callused hands rewire the ship’s piloting setup.

She sighed as electricity crackled. The wires had all blown, and had lost everything, even their coating. “Wasn’t worth a damn credit,” she muttered. “I can’t believe they looked me in the eye and sold me this.” She reached for her tool box and pulled out a pair of thick gloves. After snapping them on, she reached into the control panel and began ripping out the wiring. 

It wasn’t more damage. It was, Keith thought, impossible to damage the ship  _ more _ . He reached out to touch the panel, to lean in, but the sun was setting, despite having risen minutes ago. Like on fast-forward, he watched Yara rebuild the ship between sleeping, eating, and singing. How long she remained on the planet, he didn’t know.

When the ship took off, the world didn’t darken or fade. From the sand sprouted grass, trees, even flowers. In the distance, he saw blackness pooling, spreading out in a long road that dried to asphalt. The road was further down the hill; the hill blocked the cars’ view of the alien ship landed on the other side, between a pair of poplar trees. Yara sat against the ship’s side, a hand on her belly. Agony twisted her face to something unfamiliar. 

“Not yet,” she sobbed. “Not yet--” She screamed, the sound feral, her fangs visible as she cried into the roar of the highway and the silence of the trees. Birds startled into the air, rushing away from the dying creature. “Please…” Her hands cupped, but no quintessence poured from the ether. She surrendered, then. Getting to her feet visibly agonized her, but the ship’s solid size helped.

She didn’t go to the road. There was help there, but he knew from the sounds that this was Earth. The birds, the sky, the trees and grass, and finally the cars: those were human, Terran,  _ Earthly _ . And Yara was plainly inhuman in her robes and fur and with her teeth and claws. She walked into the forest like a hermit retreating from the world. He followed her several steps back. Green speckled the flowers’ petals. Her robe were soaked by blood and sweat.

She was going to die. She was going to die to give birth to her and Thace’s child because the Voice had abandoned her. Why? Because she was pregnant? Because she’d disobeyed? The Voice said nothing. He knew she had to have watched Yara’s plight. It hadn’t moved her a bit.

“I’m sorry,” Keith told Yara. “I’m so sorry.” She was dead. She’d died far from her homeland, friends, and family. It’d been a prolonged, miserable death that could have been stopped if the Voice had intervened. “Why did you carry it?” She’d wanted to abort before.

What had changed her mind? Why go to Earth? Why had she brought them both here, and what had she done to him to make him human?

She dragged herself along dirt paths. There were people in the distance, shouting and laughing. It was a family on a hike. Yara--his  _ mother _ \--hid behind a tree. Her gold eyes looked over the family, calculating and determined. Her breathing hitched and heaved as labour pangs wracked her body. Keith stood beside her and looked out at the family.

They were normal. A short mother burdened with a bag of snacks, a composed father who watched his gamboling children with a smile, and a trio of children who darted in and out from the path, grabbing at flowers and collecting pretty stones. “Keep an eye out for birds!” the father said. He lifted a camera. “You know your grandmother loves robins.”

Yara waited for them to go into the distance before stumbling after the family. She didn’t call out. Keith knew how it ended. The family she tailed was Asian--and that would be what she’d transform him into. A perfect baby to fit into their family, while she died elsewhere, her body never found or its existence covered up.

He wasn’t human. Not in whole, and not even quarters. He was completely Galra, the son of a soldier and a Druid--a Druid who’d been abandoned by her god, who’d left his father--the father who’d only in the past year realized he had a son--and who had died soon after giving birth to him. 

Why? “I’m sorry,” he told her image. He’d killed her. Something about his existence had been worth dying for, worth losing her loved ones, worth losing the power she’d been raised her entire life to wield. Keith didn’t see how his existence had been worth that.

Did she know he’d become a Paladin? Had she turned her back on the Voice and Empire? She’d tried to conjure quintessence, though, and she’d begged for the Voice to help. The fury that filled his veins could have burned a thousand forests to the ground.

The Voice had watched his mother die. His mother had  _ begged _ for help, and the Voice had stood aside, recording the memory to show the son who lived in his mother’s image. “Where are you?” he asked, voice tight and rough.

The Voice chimed, oblivious to what she’d done. His mother’s stumbling image receded. In its wake followed a world of light and colour. The false Chorus lacked the power and assaulting sound of the real one. The windows--bubbles--to each person in the Chorus dangled like pendulums. There was Thace above Volux’s, and that black strand again.

Volux was Thace’s child with another mother. In Yara’s absence, his heart had found comfort in someone else. And now, with Thace as Keith’s father, Volux was his sibling.

“Two Druids for children,” Keith said. “What luck you’ve had.”  _ At least you’re alive. Not like my mother. _

The Voice chimed again, insistent. Keith swallowed his anger and turned to look at her. But the bubble he saw stilled his heart. His mother’s face, frozen in repose, looked out at him through clever, cunning eyes. Yara’s memory belonged to the Voice’s Chorus. Not even in death could she truly rest.

He reached out and grabbed his mother’s bubble. The Voice trilled a question that sharpened as his nails dug into the soft memory. “Why?” he asked. The Voice didn’t make a sound, though he felt her confusion. He breathed deep. “Why didn’t you help her?”

Light reached out to touch him. Her hesitance revealed she sensed his growing anger.  _ Mine _ , the Voice said, as though that explained everything.

But it did, if he looked at it through her limited mind. His mother had gained an invader to the Voice’s territory. The Voice didn’t understand things like pregnancy: it was a sterile force, one made to consume. What did it understand of creating life? From the Voice’s view, Yara should have divested herself and rededicated her existence to the Voice.

And that was how his mother had been able to turn him into a human form. He’d been born, and with the last remnants of her strength she’d turned him human instead of healing herself with the Voice’s renewed power. Had she not had the power to do both--to heal herself and then change them both to humans? Or had she been too far gone for the power of pure quintessence to save her? She’d been far from the Voice’s realm, after all, both in location and in time away from wielding quintessence. He didn’t know how long a Galran pregnancy lasted, but it had to be a while. She’d travelled by junker to another planetary system.

There were so many questions. Why had she carried him to term? Had she said anything to Thace? What had happened to her body and her ship? Had she known she could use quintessence on her own, without the Voice, and simply hadn’t had enough to care for her health?

Had she hated the Voice by the end, like he did now?

“She worshipped you,” Keith said.

The Voice sighed, the sound like the ghostly croon of a loon.  _ She was mine. _

And so, to the Voice, Yara should have worshipped her. Forget Yara’s sorrow, forget her tears, forget her blood and misery: Yara belonged to the Voice and her Chorus. Yara’s bubble burned against the pads of his hand. His nails dug in as he gripped the bubble tighter and tighter.

The Voice chimed alarm. That was  _ hers _ , as she was so fond of telling him about everything. She watched his fingers dig deeper and deeper, distorting the bubble with every bit of pressure.  _ Stop _ , she said, but Keith wasn’t listening. Anger filled his ears. With a yell, Keith ripped the bubble in two. The memory--soul?--of his mother spilled out as a stream of gold, like liquid from a shattered bottle. It fell through the bottomless Chorus.

The Voice screamed. The anger that’d filled Keith’s ears was nothing to the Voice’s storm. Winds and quintessence battered him. He went sprawling at the force. She leapt on to him, snarling and hissing; the Chorus wailed. Quintessence pressed on him like a heavy board, stealing his breaths from his lungs.

He tried to thrash. There was no room to move. His ribs creaked--but worse, there was nothing to fight. The Voice was a miasma of light and wind. His fingers slipped through the mass, yet it had the force to suffocate. He stared up into the light. Bones cracked as the Voice pressed closer, her howls maddened by his lack of response.

He almost closed his eyes. His job was done. Maybe she’d craft him into a replacement of his mother, like a doll encased in glass. She’d need to pick up the pieces of his body before that--

A dot of darkness bloomed in the light’s centre, like an ink drop from a clumsy student’s pen. The black dribbled down, flowing like a steady stream. It clouded like blood in water; the grey cloud’s tendrils devoured the light eagerly, like the Voice had her followers. Now, in her fury, she remained oblivious to the soul of darkness inside her.

His bones cracked. He felt his ribcage give. Shattered, pointed ribs stabbed into soft organs; his lungs struggled as blood began to fill them. He was, he thought, a pinned insect--a desperate butterfly or moth pierced by thin metal to a board. The shadowy giant above him grew: the darkness inside the Voice spread, but his own vision faded, greying and darkening until there were only pinpricks of light, like distant stars.

She pried at his quintessence. By nature, she consumed, but for his case, he’d become a trophy. His face was wet. Was it from tears or blood? He closed his eyes against the battering force. He didn’t want to face his death like that. She screamed for him to open his eyes, to submit, but all he wanted to think about were Rime, Red, and Shiro. 

He’d never promised to go home. Maybe if he had, he’d feel less terrible. At least with a promise he’d have something to hold on to. When the world turned to midnight, there was no moon or stars to look for. His body shuddered as it began to shut down limb by limb; there was no air to sustain his brain, and his internal bleeding sapped strength from his body.

The Voice howled as she tore and ripped. When her claws reached bone, he stopped feeling anything. His mind went silent. There was nothingness, a void of sensation or understanding that would last for an eternity.

He’d suffered before. He’d balanced on the knife’s edge of death and lost all feeling and sensation. But there’d always been a sudden hand extended, or a rush of quintessence to pull his body from the brink. It didn’t come.

There was no ability to enjoy the silence and absence of pain. His mind had lost the ability to do such a thing. Nothingness filled him. His essence drifted. 

When the roar came, the universe shuddered. There were no thoughts or contemplation as a streak of red blossomed in the darkness. Its glowing eyes were sunlight-bright. Like a comet, it sailed through the universe. In a sea of darkness, she found him. Her jaws snapped around him, clutching his essence close.

Fire filled his veins. Sparks sputtered in his mind, searching for kindling to light. Nerves fired in a world outside the void.  _ Come back _ , Red said but he had no ears to listen with and no mind to understand the words. Another roar, this time as the world shivered to brilliant lights. 

His eyes snapped open. His knees were in the spring waters. People were screaming. He stared up, but there was no Voice. The spring waters were dark and oily, and they seeped into his uniform’s knees. They dyed him black.

“What did you do?” Volux was yelling. There was no barrier to hold them back now. 

Ulaz grabbed at Keith’s shoulder and yanked him to his feet. Regris stuffed something into a bag, something dark as night. Guns were being raised. Keith turned to see Hyladra on her knees, sobbing as she hunched over. Thace stared at him, face blank.

His legs shook beneath him. It was done. But what happened next?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update will be the 31st! <3


	23. Chapter 23

_ What have you done? What have you done? What have you done, you fucking  _ **_monster_ ** \--

Keith watched the guns raise. Even the soldiers were crying. Her light was gone, swallowed by the darkness the Blades had brought. The black water reflected little light. The shining polished walls, once a bright red, were a rusted bloody colour. The foliage the Voice had enjoyed looked withered. It was a scene of death, he thought, and he was the reaper.

“Why?” Thace asked, the question so simple in its suddenness.

Keith grit his teeth. “Because I’ll take the truth,” he said, “over any comforting lies,  _ Father _ .”

Thace flinched. The news wasn’t welcoming or enlightening. It was a weapon now. Keith’s gaze wandered to Volux, who huddled on the ground. What did his sibling feel? Had Volux known Keith was their brother? How had any of them known he was related to them? But then he’d looked like Yara. He looked like someone had Xeroxed her face on to him. 

If he saw someone who looked almost exactly like Shiro, wouldn’t he think Shiro had a twin brother? And if he saw it years later, if Shiro had vanished, wouldn’t he think that Shiro had a child, or had come back in the flesh?

Yara was dead and gone and who knew where her bones rested. Had the Canadian government confiscated her corpse? Had she been dissected? Had they known she had a son, and where he was?

He tried to remember his childhood, combing it for anything strange, but there’d never been anything strange beyond his purple eyes and whatever had disturbed the orphanage when he was young. It’d made him unadoptable as a baby. Was it a remnant of his Galran heritage? He imagined stubs of Galran ears, a tail, even claws.

Now wasn’t the moment for grieving, though. With the Voice gone, he reached out to Red. The Imperial officers were inching closer, their weapons raised. Regris and Ulaz were frozen. How would they escape, he could see them wondering, just as he saw the malice in the officers’ faces. These were the rebels who’d killed the Voice, or at least stopped her for now.

Red roared in the skies above. In the din of battle, it was just another sound. But he heard her pride and strength. She’d been freed from her chains, and now the Voice was gone.  _ My Paladin _ , she roared. No sharing, no submission, no pretensions for the sake of her enemy.

The ceiling shook and ripped. Stones fell, smashing against the pool’s surface and the sandy ground. People staggered away. There was no shelter to run to: all people could do was stare up and dodge the flying rocks. Keith reached out and grabbed Regris’ arm when he tried to run too.

Keith breathed deep. Quintessence manipulation was innate to the Galra. Yara was a Druid. Couldn’t he, then, protect them? What did it feel like to conjure barriers, or release the lightning barrages he’d once faced? He remembered the ozone smell of his first fight with a Druid. It had burned his nostrils, pungent as any spice and sharp like acetone. 

The dead quintessence around him stank of oil and rust. It was death, he thought; death to the zing of life. “I can do this,” he said. The rocks continued to fall as the Red Lion struggled to get to him. Someone tried to shoot at him, but Ulaz yanked him out of the shot’s direction. 

“We need to move,” Regris was saying. 

But where would they even go? The rocks were huge, and the plants withered to nothing, providing no shelter. Down the ledge, along the incline to the Voice’s home, soldiers were ready to kill them. Even the discs would only send them flying into the storm. 

He could do it. His mother was a Druid. His sibling was a Druid. He’d spoken to the Voice, and she had loved him until he struck out. His eyes squeezed shut. The quintessence he’d use would need to come from him--there was no Voice to give others’ to him, and he didn’t want to take anyone else’s besides.

He dreamed of gold. Shimmering like a wood-fire’s smoke, brilliant as any new coin, pungent and poisonous and most of all  _ glorious _ , because it was life itself. It clouded around his and the Blades’ heads like old Christian halos. Rocks and shattered rubble crashed against the gold, but it never gave. It flowed from his chest, from the skin and bone caging his heart; bullets, lasers, fists, and metal struck the shield again and again, but it meant nothing.

He opened his eyes. The veil was thinner than he’d imagined it, but it was there. He watched shards slide off the barrier, toppling into a growing pile. Ulaz and Regris huddled behind him. He felt their awe-struck eyes. 

Keith looked over the soldiers who stared. Thace shook his head, as though disbelieving; Hyladra’s eyes, Keith realized, were no longer golden. They were a soft violet, an almost forget-me-not blue. He looked from person to person, and all their eyes were a sky of colour: pink, indigo, red, even orange.

None of them were gold.

Keith smiled, then. It was done. Oh, the Outsiders were coming, if not already in their universe, but the Galras’ chains had been torn from their limbs. They’d struggled, but it was done. Should he apologize? Would the history books be kind to what he’d done, or would there be no one to read them a hundred years from now?

So long, he thought, as someone in the universe survived. Humanity. The Balmerans. The diasporan Alteans, or even the Galra themselves. So long as someone survived the war, it’d be worth everything.

The ceiling’s centre gave in with a final heave. Red roared, victorious. Guns rose, aimed at her belly, but nothing penetrated her metal hide.  _ You’re back! _ she said.  _ You’re free! _

No more chains. Never again, not after so long. “Let’s help them,” he said to her. He turned to look at Regris and Ulaz. “Follow me?”

Ulaz and Regris shared a long look. “Wherever you need to go, Paladin,” Ulaz said.

_ Paladin _ . The title was his again. He’d earned it this time. The Red Lion landed in the blackened waters. Her gleaming metal body reflected Gal’s sun high above, turning the waters glistening white. She roared, powerful and gleeful. No more chains, they thought in chorus. Keith walked away from the ledge, from Volux and Thace and Hyladra, and the Red Lion hunkered down, her mouth falling open.

He didn’t have his armour, nor did he have his bayard. Those were problems, but he’d figure it out. Maybe he could even use quintessence to activate the Lion’s stronger weapons. People shouted behind him, his name--his  _ real _ name--on their lips. He’d made a choice, though. The Voice was dead, and he’d torched any home he could have found on Gal. If he’d turned on Ulaz and Regris when they’d reached the Voice, he might have salvaged what he’d almost had.

But he knew better. His boots clanked against the Lion’s ramp. The cloud of quintessence followed them, and he held it in place as the Lion’s mouth snapped shut. The Lion’s insides lit in sterile white. He’d last seen her half-destroyed, fuming smoke and wires crackling. But either she’d repaired herself, or the Galra had. Everything looked pristine.

Ulaz and Regris huddled behind him, gaping. “Find a seat,” Keith told them, “or something to hold on to.” In the Lion’s stomach, there were two extra seats--simple things, little lips on which toolkits could rest, but there were hidden seatbelts in the corners. Keith pointed them out to the pair. They strapped themselves in, their awed looks never fading. He marched through the Lion’s belly, and took another ramp up.

All the while, Red purred against him. The soldiers had no heavy artillery, and their bullets washed off her. Eyes to the sky, she watched ships mid-dogfight, the pace almost faster than the human eye could see. Eagerness bloomed in their bond.. To return to battle--to proper killing, the killing of enemies he didn’t have to see--was to return to normalcy. 

He wasn’t a Galra when he was a Paladin. Oh, his body wasn’t human and his bloodline wasn’t human, but he thought that, if he could fight, maybe he could forget that. Maybe he could disown the ugly part of him. The Lion’s cockpit exploded into light when he entered; through the Lion’s screen, he saw Imperial soldiers charging the Lion.

_ Traitors _ , she thought.

Keith sat in the chair, his hands coming to rest on the controls. “We have bigger things to worry about,” he told her. Hyladra ripped at their bond, desperate to speak to him, but the Red Lion snarled and batted her away. The impulse to apologize tasted ugly on his tongue.

The Lion sprung from the water at a simple touch. Where, once, he’d heard little except fragments from Red, she know chattered at him, her intelligence brilliant but as unfocused as a lazy summer breeze. He’d spoken to her--to her as an unknown Syf, to her as Terava of the Black Roost. She’d said her soul was gone, but her intelligence remained.

Now, he knew the force of that intelligence. The faint sentience he’d experienced before separation had been alarming, but something he’d seen as an animalistic intelligence, a lingering awareness of the world and people around her. But after talking to Terava, after Zarkon, after the Voice, he saw how much of Terava remained. He heard her thoughts, even if they were dim, and through Terava’s spirit, the whole of Red followed his own desires faster than his hands could move. 

Was this the bond the other previous Paladins had had with their Lions, or was his special? The line between him, Terava, and Red was so thin. It didn’t matter, either way. He broke free from the cavern through the hole Red had dug. 

There were a hundred ships ducking and weaving between each other. Lasers of quintessence ripped at metal siding; corpses of ships littered the complex’s roof, and scattered through the canyon. Burnt bodies had fallen free, like a trail of stones along a path. 

A large figure swooped from ship to ship. Zarkon wielded the black bayard with the experience of millenia. Keith watched, awed, as he spun around on his heel, an axe in hand. When Zarkon froze, Keith refused to stop. He didn’t want to look at Zarkon. He didn’t know what he’d do if he had to speak to the man.

Hails were coming in from the Blades. The Leader’s unmasked face appeared on the screen. His eyes were light orange. “She’s dead?” was the immediate question.

“Whatever you guys did,” Keith replied, “it worked. We need to withdraw, though.”

The Leader gave a stiff nod. “We were waiting for your Lion, but now that you’re out--” He turned to someone offscreen. “Sound the retreat. Red-12s go with us, but everyone else goes underground. Paladin--we’re leaving Gal. Will you cover our retreat?”

Leaving Gal. He’d dreamed of it for so long… Still, he didn’t have his bayard. They’d be down both the black and red bayards, preventing them from unlocking Voltron’s powers. But if he spoke to Terava, there may be a way around it. Have faith, he told himself. He’d survived on it for so long. A little bit more wouldn’t hurt.

“I’m ready,” he said. He took swipes at passing Imperial ships. “Give me a countdown.” His palms burned and itched. He ignored it as a communications officer counted them down from seven. Zarkon sprung into a charge, heading straight for Keith and Red, but Keith launched Red into a blurring missile. Red’s claws lashed at ships, her mouth spilling fiery blasts. 

Zarkon followed with a barrage of hails. Keith ignored them. When the countdown reached seven, rebel ships blurred. They flew in all directions, but all away from the fight. Keith whirled around, lunging at every Imperial ship he saw. Some Imperial ships tried to follow the rebels, but blasts of energy sent them scrambling away.

“Tell me when you’re far enough,” Keith said over the line. Zarkon blocked a beam to one of the cruisers. Keith swore under his breath and directed Red higher into the air. From his vantage point, he wove between missiles and lasers. Red responded to the most subtle movements, elegant and fast and barely controlled. Terava sang in his head, drunk on the thrill of battle, while Red, the combination of him, Terava, and the intelligence of the machine itself, roared again and again.

He didn’t know how much time had passed. But when the Leader said it was enough, Keith launched for the skies. Red devoured the empty space, her glee infectious; Imperial ships hobbled after, but they were slow from damage and slower from surprise. The Red Lion’s speed demanded far more than what their ships could muster.

The Blades were light-years away now. The connection to the Leader’s vessel turned static, but they weren’t far enough for that to happen. Keith cursed, reaching up to fiddle with the settings, but the Leader’s face, his mouth moving, vanished. What replaced it forced his heart to a stop.

Zarkon.

He didn’t look angry. Exhaustion lined his face. “There were better ways for this to end,” he said from a ship. “But then that would be too easy for the both of us, wouldn’t it?”

Keith tried to kill the feed, but something had taken control of his Lion’s communications systems. It occurred to him, then, that the Galra had likely made use of the time with Red. He reached for Terava, who only shrugged.

_ I didn’t let them in, but I can only do so much when they come from the outside. _

What did that mean? Had the Empire’s technicians taken over Red’s broadcasts? Or had they taken advantage of Red when she’d first been captured--when she’d been unconscious, as much as a sentient machine could be?

Keith breathed in. Ignoring Zarkon would only encourage his presence. Zarkon wanted to finish this, as much as it ever could be finished. 

“I’ve never wanted things to be  _ easy _ ,” Keith said.

Zarkon laughed softly. “Maybe not. It took us time to reach this, didn’t it? So many months of parties and dining, talk and dancing. You’re worried I can stop you through what we did to the Lion, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Keith admitted. His hand clutched the Lion’s controls. Why wasn’t Zarkon yelling? Why wasn’t he furious? Keith had killed the Voice. He’d destroyed ships and killed their crews on Gal. He’d helped rebels. “... You didn’t reach out for this. If you could stop me, you would have already.”

“I could be tracking you,” Zarkon replied. “You’ll go to one of their bases, and I’ll follow.”

Zarkon had done it before, in a way. “You’d never have let it get this far if you could stop me. The Voice is dead. You’d have stopped Red’s escape the moment you knew the rebels were attacking her.” And if Zarkon tried to track him from far away, he’d have the chips removed. Even if it’d leave him scarred.

“Ah, so my game is done.” Zarkon looked even more exhausted. His shoulders didn’t sink, but he breathed a sigh. “You’ve killed billions, if not trillions in this year alone.” He sat alone in a sterile metal room. There were no soldiers or attendants to see Zarkon’s true feelings. “This universe will be gone in a decade.”

“A decade where we can fight--”

“You think we didn’t fight?” Zarkon said. “You think we didn’t bleed for this universe? Every race, every weapon, every  _ mind _ was on our side. I led Voltron into thousands of engagements. None of them did anything but prolong the inevitable.”

Keith breathed in deep once, twice, and then spoke. “We’re never going to agree on this. You were feeding your people and everything else to the Voice to make her powerful enough to keep out the Outsiders. It was speeding up entropy--you were prolonging the inevitable.”

“Some life is better than no life.”

“Life for who?” Keith snapped. “For the people you killed? For those who lost their planets? Or what about the Galra--your people live for a hundred years! Not fifty!”

Zarkon shook his head, but didn’t reply. He didn’t cut the feed, though, so Keith used the time to breathe deep. Getting angry wouldn’t help. Zarkon had made his choice--had made it for ten thousand years. If he’d wanted to question himself, he’d had plenty of time in which to do it. The thoughts didn’t help. When Zarkon spoke, Keith hadn’t found his centre or any sort of calm. All he had was anger.

“So you’ll return to them as a Galra?”

Keith grit his teeth. Had Zarkon known what he really was? He couldn’t have known Thace was his father, at least, nor that Volux was his sibling. If Zarkon had known, he’d never have let them near him. It threatened Zarkon’s control over him. 

“I’d go back to them a dendin if I had to.” Rime was waiting for him. That knowledge soothed him more than anything else. Everything was largely shit, but Rime survived. “They’ll understand.”

“Will they?” Zarkon’s eyes were far more expressive without the strange glow. Had Keith destroyed his immortality? The Voice had to have been involved with how long Zarkon had lived. Keith’s stomach twisted. He had, in a way, killed Zarkon too. “You are part of the race that murdered Alteans. Your people destroyed Altea and a million others. Genocide is in your bloodline.”

It was incredible to hear that coming from Zarkon.  _ You led the genocide _ , Keith almost said. But what was the point? Zarkon was right. His race had done horrible, treacherous, disgusting things. Allura would be horrified. Lance would take it as a victory over Keith, while Hunk and Pidge would be leery. Who knew how Coran would feel? The only person he could guess even less at was Shiro.

Shiro was… everything. He could be angry, or horrified, or gentle as a summer’s breeze. But what Keith knew, most of all, was that every reaction would hurt. Even if Shiro wrapped his arms around Keith, Keith would still feel like he’d betrayed Shiro. Because not only was Keith a Galra, he was a Galra who’d befriended others and enjoyed the spoils of Zarkon’s campaign.

So what did he say to Zarkon? The Red Lion flew on and on, catching up slowly but surely to the Blades, but Zarkon’s feed never dimmed. If Keith wanted to, he could probably cut it off--Terava and him melded with the Red Lion, after all--but maybe he needed this. He needed to tell Zarkon that everything was done and over with. The Voice was dead, Zarkon would follow in a few decades, and the world might end in between that.

“It is,” Keith admitted, because he’d seen Thace and Yara at work on a planet, killing inhabitants before harvesting its quintessence. Whatever kind things could be said about what Yara had done after, she’d killed thousands directly and billions indirectly. Had the planet they’d attacked even known there was a world outside their own?

If Voltron hadn’t appeared, would the Galra have eventually harvested Earth?

He breathed deep and spoke again. “But salt comes before blood, doesn’t it? This--this is my duty. If I’d stayed, I’d have been choosing blood. And among my people, that’s not acceptable.”

A sad smile spread over Zarkon’s face. “Perhaps we taught you too well, then.”

The vicious part of him, the part that still raged at ever having been in chains, wanted to say he’d learned nothing from them. He’d always put duty ahead of what he wanted. But there was a duller part to him, one that reminded him of deceptively deep rivers.

He  _ had _ learned from the Galra. The fire that’d let him bond with Red had been tempered. Not quenched-- _ almost _ quenched, like rain against a bonfire--but steeled against the raging storm he’d found himself in. The universe wasn’t a fun adventure. It wasn’t him as a noble knight off to save those he loved, or to protect Earth.

It was mess. It was a borderline disaster, one where a single misstep had ramifications he might not even live to understand. Where would the Galra be if the Outsiders were defeated? What would happen to them when the races they’d decimated came to collect their pound of flesh?

What would happen to them when they no longer had the Voice?

These weren’t questions he’d have asked before. He’d been too bull-headed. There had always been the mission and nothing else. He’d needed to escape, he’d needed to excel, he’d needed to fight off anyone who looked at him sideways, just in case they were waiting for a moment to knock him down. Now, years away from the Garrison, he’d endured something he didn’t know how to articulate.

He’d been a prisoner, sure. But he’d smiled and laughed with occasional disturbing honesty. Zarkon’s plans had worked, in a way. The Galra were part of Keith, and the thought squeezed his chest closed like a vise. What was escape when he could articulate everything he did in Galran concepts? He’d never be able to separate himself from what had happened.

He breathed deep.  _ Perhaps we taught you too well, then. _ Zarkon waited for him to speak. It’d only make the bonds worse. That’s all Zarkon wanted to do. If he infected Keith enough with Galran ideas and Galra relationships, then he’d have influence over Voltron still. The Keith from the start of this confinement had always suspected nefariousness, but would he have understood it as he did now?

“I’m still me,” Keith said. Who was Keith Kogane, though? The answer came easy. Terran male, twenty years old, former cadet at the Galaxy Garrison, resident of Toronto, Asian if only in usual form, friend of Takashi Shirogane, and part-time courier. He liked nature walks. Books were his childhood friends. Racing was in his blood. 

They were memories now. Faint ones, covered in dust and shrouded by blood’s madness. But he could brush them clean and hold them close. Even if this ended in him alone and dying, there was a time before the Galra. 

“What you taught me,” Keith said, “is that I can’t trust anyone but myself.” And with that, he sent the window away. Zarkon could record the Lion’s engine room for all he cared. On the horizon, he saw the Blades’ ships. Imperial forces were desperately mustering to chase and attack, but he dove at them, Red’s claws gleaming with power.

“I’m a Paladin,” he said aloud. “I’m the Red Paladin.” Not Caith or Keirin or anything else. Just Keith Kogane, the Red Paladin. Terava’s voice sang something soft to him, but he couldn’t hear it right over the pounding of his blood.

Panic rattled his heart. It didn’t matter, though. “It’s done, it’s over,  _ keep going _ .” It turned into a chant as he attacked Imperial ships. Did he know anyone on board them? Did they know he was a Galra now? What a propaganda tool, Keith thought, to spring that on the Empire and its subjugated states. The Paladin was a Galra--wayward to the Empire, just another bloodthirsty monster to the rest.

Not a hero. Never a hero. Not after what he’d done to the Voice.

_ Stop thinking about it _ .  _ You’re only making it worse. _

It was done, over, pointless to ruminate on. The weeping wound would scab over, and so long as he didn’t pick at it, there’d only be a silvery scar remaining. A scar like the ones on his palms. The Red Lion rubbed against his mind, her weight comforting. The further he got from Zarkon and his ships, the further he’d be from the past.

Faster, faster, and faster, he pushed the Lion. It was the speed, he thought, of when the Blue Lion had taken them to Arus. The distant stars streaked like paint in rain. He breathed with the Lion’s unseen heart, and he directed her through asteroid belts and gathered ships, all hoping to stop his run for freedom. His mind processed the images Red fed him on a level he’d never done before. She spoke to him like he understood, and the strangest thing was that he did. It wasn’t the trickle of information, or a struggle to understand what the other meant.

His heart pounded in his chest. Should he be glad? It was something good to come of everything. That, and the destruction of the Voice. That was a good thing. He thought it was--he  _ hoped _ it was. He shoved away doubt, but it always came creeping back in.

An alert popped up on his screen. His communications with Zarkon had ended. Whatever the man’s range in his flagship, it didn’t extend between systems. Ahead by a dozen planets, the Blades relayed one final message to him. It was the now-masked Leader. Behind him, Blades were celebrating. Subdued, but he thought he spied a bottle being passed around, one of fermented gheron milk.

“Paladin.” The Leader’s voice had lightened. Relief was palpable. “We cannot go to the Castle with you. We’d only lead the Imperial navy there, and your friends would see us as enemies.” 

It was true, but Keith hated that. Going alone meant facing them as a Galra. There’d be no distractions, no one to hide behind, not even a message to deliver other than that he had returned and the Voice was dead. 

“I have Regris and Ulaz,” Keith said. “They’ll be coming with me, or would it be possible to stage a drop off and pick up?” Introducing more Galra might help. Sure, he’d be stuck doing the introductions, but they could vouch that it was Keith. 

… What would their words’ worth be in the other Paladins’ eyes, though? Ulaz and Regris could just be collaborators vouching for a pretender. He reached out to Red.  _ You’ll tell them I’m me, won’t you? _

The Leader’s hand had drifted to his chin as he thought. “I don’t think it wise. Stopping for a time would give the Imperials to catch up. Ulaz knows the coordinates of the base we’re going to--when you’ve spoken to your allies, bring them to the Blades. From there, we can organize a proper defense of this universe.”

_ I’ll tell them _ , Red promised. Terava spoke too.  _ The other Lions know I would never choose another. _

Warmth suffused him. “Point me in the Castle’s direction, and I’ll bring them.” 

The Leader considered him. His mask hid his expression, but there was something gentle about the Leader’s voice when he spoke. “We’re relaying the coordinates. And Paladin--all things pass.”

God, he hoped so. The Leader ended the transmission just as the Lion’s screen blinked out a series of numbers. With the Red Lion, he could read them easy as anything. 

The Red Lion split off from the Blades’ trajectory. Pointed toward the darkness of unknown space, it blasted through the void. From the inside of the cockpit, he heard no rumbling engines or the wheeze of exhaust. No fires crackled in panels, and no wires fizzled and snapped. Red’s legs mimed a dash as she gobbled up lightyear after lightyear.

Freedom. Not sweet, but freedom. Neither Ulaz nor Regris came up from the Lion’s belly to ask him where they were going. He used the time to steady his breathing and re-centre himself. The meeting with the other Paladins, Allura, and Coran was going to go badly. He didn’t even have to guess at that. What mattered, though, was how he fixed the situation after. 

He could use quintessence. It meant he could change his form back to something human. What were the effects of using his quintessence to do that, though? The Druids hadn’t used their own, and there had to be a reason for that. Did it burn up the user’s quintessence, thus shortening their own life? How much of his own had he used already?

Breathe, he told himself firmly. Breathe, and tell Ulaz and Regris what was going on. If he was quick about everything, they could be back with the Blades within a few days. He flicked on the internal speaker system and kept the message short.

_ The Leader says you’re with me while we go to the Castle. We’ll be going to the Blades’ base right after. _

Keith closed the line right after. He didn’t want to hear others’ thoughts. Maybe it was unfair, but what did it matter? Nothing was fair; little was kind. Make of it, he thought, what you will. Red’s purr hitched, as though she noticed his displeasure. She pressed against him, her weight almost threatening.

Hyladra wasn’t in his mind anymore. It felt…  _ empty _ . Red had either ripped their bond to shreds, or pushed Hyladra’s existence out for the interim. In the absence of people, Keith found his body going limp. Exhaustion filled him in the wake of panic and anger.

It wasn’t over. He’d only knocked over the first domino, and he didn’t know where the rows’ end even was. But he’d always thought it was better to move forward, no matter what. Sitting, waiting, watching--he’d done enough of that. Now, he was free. He’d made a choice. He’d burned bridges and cut ties and maybe, just maybe, years from now, he’d be alive to have regretts about it.

His mind reached out to sigh against Red’s warm side as the lightyears vanished between him and the Castle.

 

* * *

 

This area of space was empty: no planets, no stars, no rubble. Natural light hadn’t touched the void’s edge for far more than ten thousand years. Fewer years had passed since a ship visited. The last one, a cruiser of surveyors and officials, had slept poorly as they navigated the emptiness. Some had claimed to dream of screams. Those reports had been carefully plucked from the system and disposed of.

For ten thousand years, the void’s edge had been cloaked in gold light. It danced like the aurora borealis yet ships that came close swore they smelled something sweet and rotten. Investigations never produced anything in the ventilation systems, nor did psychological evaluations from those haunted by the stench. It was another thing that, when found in reports, was carefully excised with a scalpel. 

So what was this place? It was the universe’s edge. It was  _ here there be dragons _ . It was the last assignment any Galra who knew what was happening wanted to get. Charybdis and Scylla waited beyond the shimmering gold.

It wasn’t just here. The edge stretched through an untold number of systems. Life filled those systems, uncountable by trillions. Even after the desolation of Zarkon’s reign, of the Outsiders, and of the war they all waged against each other, life endured. Someone hopeful might have said the universe thrived.

Yet the edges were not static. Imperial scientists whispered that the edges were contracting--the Big Bang’s force of creation had ended. Like a rubber band, entropy snapped back. While fifteen thousand years ago, the edges had surged toward the centre, the ten thousand year-old golden shield had slowed entropy’s progress.

But it wasn’t just that. The patrolling ships never knew what to make of the dark masses that pressed against the gold. Wherever they touched, the shield turned to solid gold. When the shield returned to translucency, the dark mass had retreated--or been burned away. What any of those observers would have noticed now was the most stark difference:

All the gold was gone, and the dark masses encroached from outside the void.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading Salt and Blood! There's one more arc to this series, and it'll be posted under the name 'Eternal Night'. Follow me on Ao3, on Tumblr (the-wenzel.tumblr.com), or on Twitter (a__wenzel) to stay up to date on the story's progress! Eternal Night will be posted on the 12th of February. <3
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed, and I'm looking forward to continuing the series!


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